


Jumanji: The Elder Scrolls Special Edition

by Mister_Fox



Category: Bleach, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Movies)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Gen, Kisuke is very done with Jumanji and the world of Skyrim it has created
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mister_Fox/pseuds/Mister_Fox
Summary: Ichigo leaves a game with Kisuke to store somewhere safe. Thinking he's broken it by accident, Kisuke fixes it, and runs it to test that it works.Jumanji has been waiting to test out the newest iteration of the Elder Scrolls world.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/gifts).



JUMANJI AU: ELDER SCROLLS EDITION

Kisuke turns the box in his hands, curiosity gnawing at him. It’s small, wooden, and aged, nearly empty except for one object inside slightly rattling when he moves in Ichigo came over earlier and dropped it off, asking if Kisuke could keep it somewhere safe while he was away at university, and was living with flatmates instead of alone in a dorm.

He knows exactly where to put it if it needs to be _safe_ \- the same vault he kept the Hougyoku in for so very long. He is not concerned that he will not be able to find a safe place for it.

Something else is eating at him.

He does not want to invade Ichigo’s privacy, but Ichigo had not instructed him to _not_ check the contents of the box. Just said it’s _nothing worth looking at_.

So, perhaps, a little peek, won’t do any harm? If he wasn’t explicitly told to not look. Perhaps the item within requires special conditions, a special kind of storage. It would be for the best for him to know that, wouldn’t it?

After several minutes of intense contemplation, he loses the fight against his curiosity and opens the box.

Inside it is just one thing; a DVD case, with a strange symbol on the cover, _Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Special Edition_ printed in english above the symbol.

A video game? He had not known Ichigo to be one to play video games. Then is it a gift for someone in his friend or family circle, meant to be given later, and hidden somewhere where no one can chance upon it in his room?

The case rattles oddly in his hands, and he opens it to see the disk inside snapped cleanly in two.

Kisuke winces. Not even three hours in his possession, and he already managed to break it.

Well, he should be able to fix it before Ichigo drops by tomorrow, so he can look into his eyes without feeling guilty about managing to break something he promised to keep safe, just three hours after receiving it.

Two hours and plenty of very careful application of glue and kido later, the disc looks brand new. If it plays like it’s brand new is a different question, however, and Kisuke eyes his computer thoughtfully.

He could test it out, just a little, to make sure it works.

The game icon that appears on the desktop matches the symbol on the box, so at least it can be read by the computer. Still. He should check that the game starts up. He clicks on it.

For a moment, it doesn’t respond. His heart sinks. Then the screen goes black, showing a quick flash of the developer company _Jumanji_ , which he can’t recall ever having heard of before. Must be some very small or new or foreign company, then.

The screen fades, and then the main menu opens up, the symbol, enlarged, on the left, and a list of options on the right. A drumbeat starts to sound, soon accompanied by a swelling chorus in a language he doesn’t recognise.

Well, it starts. But he should check that it _plays_ properly, as well.

He selects _New Game_. The screen goes black again.

And then the blackness spread beyond it, swallowing him before he can try to shove himself away from it.

* * *

Kisuke hears the sounds of horse hooves and the rattling of a cart on a rocky road, the sounds of voices talking over one another. But that doesn’t make any sense.

He opens his eyes, blinking away the darkness and blurriness until everything is in focus, and takes stock of the situation.

He’s slumped on his side in a wooden cart trundling along a wooded mountainous area. There are two, no, three european men in the same cart as him; one in rags, two in something that looks like ancient european armour. All of them have their wrists bound, and the driver of the cart is armed and armoured, which implies they may all be prisoners being transported… somewhere.

He tries to move his own hands, only to find them bound as well, somewhere out of his current line of sight. It feels like someone hit him very hard over the head, because moving anything but his eyes is uttery impossible, which restricts his range of vision due to the slightly awkward position his head is in. Or perhaps there is something else at play behind the restricted motion, because, after all, his head does not hurt as would be consistent with a head injury.

Suddenly, he realises he can’t feel his reiatsu at all.

Now he just needs to determine the sequence of events that led him from… starting a video game? To ending up here, wherever here may be.

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake, are you?” asks one of the armoured prisoners. “Trying to cross the border, were you? Walked into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that _thief_ over there.”

Kisuke remembers no such thing, but doesn’t say so.

The man in rags - the thief, apparently, grimaces. “Damn Stormcloaks, the Empire was nice and lazy before you stirred up all this rebellion shit. Before, I could have stolen that horse and been half-way to Hammerfell if the Imperials hadn’t been looking for _you_.” He turns to Kisuke. “You and I, we don’t belong here with these rebels.”

Stormcloaks? Rebellion? _Empire?_ Kisuke must confess, he does not have a very good feeling about where all of this is going.

The driver of the cart - a soldier, an Imperial, if he is understanding the situation correctly - shouts “Shut up!” from the cart’s front.

“Now, what’s wrong with _him?”_ the thief continues quieter, nodding at the fourth passenger, who is yet to speak due to being gagged.

“Shut yer damn mouth,” hisses the Stormcloak. “You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the rightful king of Skyrim!”

Skyrim? Why does that sound familiar?

Of course, the game cover.

Which means, that unless he receives clues to the contrary, he must assume that he is somehow in the game. And with no indication otherwise, he must assume that he is able to _die_ in here.

Because it would explain why the disk was broken, when nothing he did when carrying the box around should have broken it. Of course, a deadly dangerous trap would be disabled as best as Ichigo knew how, and then be placed in a secure location.

Drat, and he can’t even say it would have been better if Ichigo had _told_ him this could happen, because he _knows_ he would have repaired and tried the game for the sake of seeing if he could figure out how it functioned.

He tunes back into the conversation.

“Ulfric? Jarl of Windhelm? Leader of the rebellion?” The thief pales. “Oh gods, where are they taking us?”

A leader of the rebellion captured by the opposing side is probably going to an execution site, Kisuke thinks, but doesn’t care to voice the thought. It should be obvious enough as is.

“I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits,” the Stormcloak replies.

Kisuke doesn’t know what Sovngarde is, but probably an afterlife.

He resumes examining the environment they are passing through, tuning out the quiet conversation around him.

If this is the very beginning of a _game_ , there will likely be some sort of opening to escape. Likely an obvious one. A game is very rarely too hard to survive right off the bat.

It will probably at the very last moment before death, for additional dramatic tension, to make the story more interesting to the player, make them more invested.

This, possibly, is some sort of cutscene, which would explain his inability to move until it is over. Unless, of course, this is due to the disk having been broken, and the game now being non-functional.

They reach a small town. Helgen, a signpost declares it to be. The cart pauses for a moment to let a procession of horse-mounted soldiers proceed in front of it, before continuing onwards. The citizens scatter, vanishing into their homes.

The town is built of wood and stone, far from any kind of modern construction, befitting a setting mirroring some ancient… north? European time.

At last, they arrive in a large square with another cart of prisoners parking behind them.

Kisuke can see dozens of well-armoured and armed soldiers around the area, and a chopping block with an executioner standing near it a ways off.

...Surely, he wasn’t expected to escape earlier, somehow? He finds himself dearly wishing that it _is_ just a cutscene, not the game being broken.

“Get out of the cart!” yells one of the guards, and Kisuke follows the other prisoners, his body moving without his input. Hopefully, that is merely a sign of the cutscene continuing as it is supposed to.

The thief starts begging for his life, but the soldiers just stare blankly at him. Desensitised, or perhaps NPCs here are not real, living people, but mere facsimiles of them.

“Head to the block when we call your name,” one says. “Ralof of Riverwood!”

The Stormcloak walks off.

“Lokir of Rorikstead!”

The thief walks forwards- and then breaks out in a run, trying to get to the exit from the square.

He doesn’t get even half-way there before a dozen arrows find their way into his body. Well, _running_ is not how he is meant to escape this situation.

Now only Kisuke and Ulfric are left.

“You there! You’re not on the list. Step forward. Who are you?” The guard glares at Kisuke, and he walks forward, uncertain.

“Kisuke,” he says, and the guard frowns, checking over the list.

“What should we do, Captain?” the guard turns to a woman clad in armour just a touch too ornamental to be entirely practical. She must be a very high ranking officer. “He’s not on the list.”

“He goes to the block, same as the rest of them.”

“Sorry, Altmer. We’ll make sure your remains are returned to Summerset. Follow the Captain, now.”

Altmer? What is an Altmer?

Kisuke follows, still unable to move of his own volition, and looks around, trying to spot an opening to escape. But there’s nothing, everyone’s attention fixed firmly on the prisoners.

There’s a distant hair-raising shriek, the strange sound coming from somewhere far off in the distance. Almost like a Hollow shriek, but not quite, less distorted, more animalistic in quality.

Whatever it is, it must be quite large to be heard from so far away. He strains his ears, listening for it.

If he’s right, then that may be a hint of the distraction coming to rescue him from this unfortunate fate.

He notes the first prisoner being executed, a random man.

“Next, the prisoner from Summerset!” the Captain calls out, but no one moves forward. “I said, next prisoner!”

Oh, the guard had said something about him being from Summerset- is that him?

The roar comes again, louder, and much, much closer. Something is definitely coming here.

He moves forward to the block, still not in control, and kneels down.

Whatever distraction is coming, it _must_ be almost here. What kind of game is so unfair as to kill the player without ever giving them a chance to actually start playing it?

A massive shape swoops down from the sky, perching on the tower at the other end of the execution square. The ground shakes from what must be a truly colossal weight.

It _shouts_ , and there’s a surge of power, knocking down people left and right, and Kisuke doesn’t hesitate to get up, finding himself free of the strange compulsion of earlier. White letters flash in front of his eyes.

_Started Quest: Unbound. Objective: Make your way to the keep._

Finally.

“Quests,” Kisuke mutters, and the world freezes, a black screen springing up. _Unbound_ , is written on the sidebar on the left side of it, and a description of the quest on the right, listing the first objective. Nothing else.

“Exit,” he says. At least now he knows how to check what the quest is, and what the current objective is.

“This way!” Ralof shouts as Kisuke stands up, and gestures at a building.

Kisuke blinks stupidly for a second, staring at the white triangle marker pointing at the man. But this is a game, a quest marker existing is not _illogical_.

There are injured men inside. Too injured for Kisuke to do anything for them with no access to reiatsu and bound hands.

“What is that thing?” one of the NPCs asks, as the dragon roars outside. “Can the legends be true?”

“Legends don’t burn down villagers,” Ulfric, who Kisuke didn’t notice standing in the corner, says.

“We need to move- up through the tower, let’s go,” Ralof orders, and Kisuke follows him. Until the roof and part of the wall cave in as the dragon lands on it, and Kisuke’s forced to jump out the hole to the attic of a house with its roof half-missing, leaving Ralof behind. He scrambles through the ruined building, ending up outside on the street.

There are a couple citizens and an Imperial soldier up ahead, and Kisuke hesitates before walking over to join them.

“Still alive, prisoner?” the soldier calls out, as a white quest marker appears on him. “Stay close to me! Citizens, go away to safety, I must find General Tullius and join the defence. Prisoner, with me.”

“May the gods guide you, Hadvar,” an old man says as the soldier runs off. Kisuke has no choice but to follow.

In the mere minutes since the dragon’s arrival, half the buildings in the area have been reduced to rubble. Fire rages everywhere.

Archers are scattered in the area, shooting at the dragon with little success, or little effect, but the soldier is moving forward too fast for Kisuke to stand around and sight-see if he doesn’t want to lose him.

“Ralof, you traitor,” Hadvar yells up ahead, and Kisuke hurries to catch up.

“We’re escaping, and you’re not stopping us this time,” Ralof shouts, and Hadvar curses in response.

“Fine! I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde.”

A new prompt flashes in Kisuke’s eyes. _Objective: Enter the Keep with Ralof or Hadvar._

Surely he’s not picking a side already?

Well… between an established empire, and people destabilising the peace and complicating the lives of local people for no good reason that he’s heard of, perhaps he’ll stick with the empire. Who knows what consequences there may be to entering cities when a criminal as well as a rebel.

He follows Hadvar into the tower, and the man immediately cuts Kisuke’s hands loose.

Kisuke rubs at his aching wrists, and looks around the room. Barracks?

“There has to be a sword or something around here, pick one up,” Hadvar says, and moves to the door at the other end of the room, waiting.

There are some coins on a table in the closest right corner of the room, and Kisuke picks them up, only for them to disappear in his hands.

Before he can wonder about where they went and if it is a game glitch, there are white words in the left top corner of his vision, a repeated message of _Item Added: Gold (1)_.

“Inventory?” he whispers, unsure of whether the NPCs can hear or would respond to him calling out random words. Nothing.

“Money?” Nothing. Wait, the prompt said Item… “Items?”

A black screen shimmers into sight, split into two black bars and a clear one, his name in the leftmost column, with _Clothes_ written under it. The only thing in his inventory are the rags and the foot bindings he’s wearing, apparently. Which is disappointing, but not surprising.

There’s something at the bottom of the right column. _5 Gold_ and _Carry Weight: 2/200_.

He’s limited in how much he can have in his inventory by weight? What will happen if he picks up something too heavy?

He selects the rags, curious, and an image appears in the right column, with a small black section underneath it with _Defence Value_ , _Weight_ , and _Value_ sections.

These rags are worth… nothing. No defensive value, no monetary value, and weigh barely almost nothing.

Well, that’s not strange, since the game has just begun, and he is starting from scratch.

He’ll certainly find better items to wear or sell off for money as he progresses through this level.

If there is an items menu…

“Skills?” He murmurs, and the menu changes to a vibrant night sky display background, with… labelled constellations? What an interesting way to display skill trees. There are a large number of skills, and he scrolls through them quickly, grouping them roughly in his mind. Magic skills, weapon skills, and sneaking skills. He’ll look at them in detail later, but… if he already has levels fifteen to twenty in every skill, then can he do magic already? Would that mean he doesn’t _need_ to use a sword, to engage in close combat?

“Magic?” he says, and the screen changes to something similar to inventory.

There’s only one spell available, _Flames_ , costing fourteen Magicka points per second, apparently, and he selects it.

Small, heatless flames bloom in his left hand, and Kisuke motions with it, frowning. Which promptly causes a gout of flame to shoot out at the floor, which thankfully doesn’t catch fire.

Right. He just needs to point, and flames will shoot in that direction. Nice and easy to use, if limited in range.

There’s a blue bar in the left bottom corner of his vision now, depleted but slowly refilling.

...Hopefully, spells will get cheaper or more efficient as he levels up, or the spell is already stronger than it looks, because otherwise, he’ll run out of magic after just seven seconds to little effect.

Perhaps he’ll need a sword to supplement the magic after all.

There are beds on the other side of the room with chests before them. Most of them are empty, except for one, which has an _Imperial Helmet,_ its name and values written in the air over it as he picks it up. It immediately appears on his head as he thinks of equipping it.

How nice of the game to make discerning, collecting, and equipping valuable and useful items so easy.

Well, it’s not his hat, but some protection is likely an excellent idea right now.

There’s another chest in the further right corner of the room, which completes his set of Imperial armour. On the wall is a weapons rack with a single steel sword. It has a combat value of seven, and selling value of twenty-three.

If a sword has the value of seven… then perhaps the flame spell with a value of five isn’t so useless when used against one or two opponents, even if not as functional for crowd control as Kisuke would like it to be.

“Right, let’s keep moving,” Hadvar says the moment Kisuke equips the sword to his right hand, keeping the flame spell in the left.

There’s a short corridor leading to a lit, circular room, and Kisuke freezes, crouching low as he hears voices.

“We gotta get outta here before the Imperials catch up,” a female voice says.

A prisoner or Stormcloak, and definitely not someone who’s going to react peacefully to their appearance.

Hadvar moves ahead anyway, saying “Maybe we can reason with them…”.

The Stormcloaks - three of them, it turns out - attack immediately. So much for hoping they would be reasonable.

Kisuke tries to attack with the sword, unfamiliar with the weight but estimating that similar movements will work. However, his body refuses to move the way it should _know_ how to, reducing the attack to a basic slash.

So he is only as skilled as the game has set his levels to be? That is… if it affects his sneaking just as much as his weapon skills, that will be _exceptionally_ annoying.

Even as he thinks all this, he’s already casting Flames. In moments the two Stormcloaks attacking him fall dead, their clothes gentle wreathed in fire, but somehow not burning. Equipment is immune to damage here? Convenient.

Well, his magic reserves may now be almost completely empty… But they are certainly enough to deal with two enemies at once.

“We have to go down, and hope there’s an exit through the tunnels,” Hadvar says, and Kisuke almost follows him into the corridor, before remembering.

Enemies in games have loot. Why should this game be different?

He crouches over the body, and a word floats above it, like the item description had over the sword. _Loot._

“Loot,” he murmurs, and the inventory screen springs up. But now there’s not just his name on the left side. _Stormcloak_ is added above his, with subcategories such as _Armour, Weapons_ , and _Miscellaneous_.

Quickly eyeing item weight and values, Kisuke only takes the cloaks, gloves, helmets, and lockpicks from the three dead stormcloaks. The rest of the heavy weapons and armour may have higher monetary value but are disproportionately higher in weight. Meaning it had a worse weight to worth ratio, and Kisuke sees no point wasting inventory space on such items.

There’s a corridor behind the door, and then a staircase leading down, a cart with cabbages and some sacks randomly placed in it.

Food items… Does this game require him to eat to survive, or is it merely a way to replenish health?

Well, he can certainly place the cabbages and the salt piles from the sacks into his inventory, at least. He can always drop them later.

He’ll test the eating mechanics of the game later, and for now, he’ll follow the NPC.

They reach a storage room, and Kisuke sneaks behind the two Stormcloaks in there, dealing with them quickly before they spot him; the first one, he stabs from the back, and the second one he burns, finishing him off with his sword.

Even if the game forces his sneak ability to be low, it seems good enough to hide him from basic enemies when they are distracted.

 _Objective: Search the Barrels for Potions,_ suddenly appears in the air. He blinks, and looks around the storage room.

There is more food and some bottles on the table and shelves, which he picks up. The bottles turn out to be potions, but picking them up doesn’t complete the objective. Right, it said barrels. He turns to them.

Only the lighter-coloured ones can be opened, and it’s only in the very last one that he finds the potions. There’s nine of them, divided into three types. _Minor Magicka, Minor Stamina,_ and _Minor Health_.

Stamina is something that needs to be replenished… What does it govern, then? Jumping, running, perhaps stronger weapon attacks? Kisuke clicks his tongue at the unwelcome news. Losing access to shunpo was not ideal, but even limiting his ability to run normally… Perhaps this game is not going to be quite as nice and _easy_ as it has been looking so far.

Kisuke follows Hadvar deeper into the keep.

They must be so far below the surface at this point, that the dragon certainly won’t be able to follow them here, even if it were for some reason so inclined.

There’s a familiar and unpleasant smell in the air. Ah. Are they going where Kisuke thinks they’re going?

“The dungeons… wish we didn’t have to come here,” Hadvar says. “But we have to, there’s no way to get down to the deeper tunnels.”

Yes, indeed they are.

There’s the sound of clashing blades, and the two of them speed up.

Stormcloaks are fighting with two men, both looking very much like torturers. The stench of blood is stronger, and Kisuke can see corpses in the three cages in the room.

Quickly dealing with the Stormcloaks, Kisuke ignores the conversation between Hadvar and the torturer as he picks up several lockpicks and a dagger from a table in a section of the room protected by bars. There’s a well-lit table in the middle of the room, highlighting a sack and a book. Perhaps it’s nothing, but… lighting tends to be used in games to signify important objects.

The sack only has more lockpicks. Kisuke picks up the book, glancing at the title, and then stores it in his inventory for later perusal. _The Book of the Dragonborn_ , that sounds vaguely interesting, and possibly relevant to the whole situation of a dragon appearing out of nowhere to attack.

 _Objective: Pick the cage lock,_ the game tells him, and Kisuke blinks.

It must mean the one with the freshest corpse, which has equipment and a money pouch, unlike the other cages, harbouring only naked corpses.

It’s a very simple lock, only needing the pick to go at the right angle, and then for the lock to be rotated

Examining the items, Kisuke comes to the conclusion that the dead prisoner must be a mage.

He has a _Novice Hood_ , increasing Magicka by twenty - and do they all call it that here? Magicka? But he summoned the menu just by saying magic… - as well as _Novice Robes_ , increasing Magicka regeneration by fifty percent.

Kisuke equips both.

If the robe turns out to be useless, at least it is both light and expensive, and he’ll sell it off for a good profit. And for now, armour with a high defensive value seems useless, as he can dodge the attacks quite easily.

 _Spell Tome: Sparks,_ the game declares the book next to the corpse, and Kisuke takes it. It melts in his hand, and _Spell Learned: Sparks_ flashes in the top left corner.

Interesting.

He will stick to the Flames spell for now, however. If there is water or anything up ahead, and physics work as in the real world, that spell may be more dangerous to him than to anyone else.

It will need to be tested before he uses it.

* * *

Down the corridors they go, encountering yet another group of Stormcloaks, before finally, they reach what looks more like natural caves than tunnels, too rough-hewn and large and disorderly to be man-made.

And inhabited by spiders.

Not small, normal-sized spiders, or even unusually large ones that might give pose even to a non-arachnophobe.

They’re spiders the size of large _dogs_.

And they spit what seems to be some kind of venom. Or maybe acid. Not that Kisuke is curious enough to let himself be hit by any of it to find out which, of course.

They burn easily, at least, but if he was alone, and not with a friendly NPC to help deal with the dozen or so arachnids… Well, he needs to get used to using that bow he picked up from a dead Stormcloak as soon as possible.

Picking off enemies from a distance while they rush over to him will be safer; the less melee combat he enters, the more likely it is that he will survive this bizarre situation.

The last obstacle to the outside world is a sleeping bear. Dying to a _bear_ before he even finishes the tutorial section would be very embarrassing, Kisuke decides. He’d much rather sneak past it, if possible, and see how strong they are some other time.

“See that bear up ahead?” says Hadvar, finally catching up to him. “I would rather sneak past, but I’ll follow your lead.”

Even the NPC advises him to not fight the bear.

He crouches down, and a horizontal line symbol flashes in front of his eyes, the word _Hidden_ under it.

The game will actually tell him if an enemy is aware of him while sneaking? That is almost _suspiciously_ convenient. Unless the sneaking is somehow so ineffective or broken that it needs to be balanced out with some extra help.

The tunnel at the other end of the cave leads out to a bright, sunlit day.

Having gotten used to the darkness of the cave, Kisuke squints at the sky until his eyes readjust.

What time is it? Mid-day?

There’s a distant screech.

Hadvar, in front of him, ducks. “Wait,” he whispers.

The dragon flies overhead, circles once, and then flies off into the distance.

“Looks like he’s gone for good, this time. But I don’t think we should stick around,” Hadvar says, and Kisuke internally agrees.

He is likely nowhere near being able to fight the dragon yet, which may well be the final boss.

“The closest town from here is Riverwood. My uncle is the blacksmith there, he will help you out if you ask. It’s best if we split up. Good luck.”

Kisuke blinks, and glances around at the surroundings. There’s no town nearby. Although, he supposes, as a one-of-a-kind magical game, the scale of this world might be very, very big. Much bigger than any of the games he’s played so far, which have been limited by the technology and software available today. Which means Riverwood might not be close in game-terms.

He turns around to ask, but… Hadvar is already gone.

Bother.

Well, he would like to level up before tackling any main quests regardless, and depending on whether he has to clear all quests, both main and side ones, to escape the game… The game doesn’t seem to be interested in telling him which, so to be on the safe side, he’ll assume it’s the more tedious option.

It may be easiest to find and clear all the quests if he does so some sort of order. Perhaps geographically? Start at the most north-east point of the world, then work his way down and across the map, finding quest givers and explorable locations, and finally finishing in the most south-west corner.

He glances at the mountains to his right, the road leading up through a gap in the mountain range. He’ll… go as east as he can first, and _then_ north, avoiding having to climb the higher parts of the mountain range to get to the other side of it. If it gets too much colder, that way he’ll hopefully at least have enough money to buy warmer clothes. There have to be some cities around to buy and sell things at. Or villages.

And if that particular area proves to demand a much higher player level than he is right now, he’ll move to a different area. Or just cautiously, slowly level up by pitting himself against harder enemies.

Right. He should not waste daylight, especially with no idea of how long a day here even is. Time to get moving.

* * *

_Skill Level Up: Destruction - 21_ , the game cheerfully informs him as he fries the third wolf in as many minutes. And then, _Level Up - Level 2._

The general level up isn’t exp based, it’s based on achieving a certain number of _skill_ level ups?

“Skills,” Kisuke mutters once he finishes looting the wolf hides and meat.

_Choose to increase: Magicka, Health, Stamina._

Levelling up only allows him to increase one aspect at a time?

Interesting.

“Health,” he decides because he can always switch between weapons and Magicka, but if his health runs out… well. The consequences are obvious.

_1 Perk Point available._

He flicks through the skill trees.

_Perk: Cast Novice Destruction spells for half price, and with 25% extra effectiveness._

Twice as much ability to deal damage before he runs out of power. That is… probably more useful than a minor enhancement to armour or sneaking or weapons, or areas of magic of which he doesn’t know any spells yet. Or enchanting, smithing, or alchemy, which he is yet to find the opportunity to try.

He best get going if he wants to find shelter tonight, however, while there is still light.

Being eaten by wolves or freezing to death while asleep is not his idea of a good time. It will likely get cold at night in a mountainous area, after all.

* * *

Ivarstead is a tiny village on the other side of the range, at the base of the tallest mountain. Too tiny, even, to actually make sense in terms of food production and sustainable population, but then this is not the real world.

Thankfully, despite its size it has an inn, a large building that Kisuke spends a few minutes standing in front of, memorising the layout of the village and roads around it.

It always pays off to know where to run if things get _complicated_.

Kisuke has reached it a little while before sunset proper, by his estimation. He could go forth… but the likelihood of running into another populated place is so low, it is best not to risk it.

Not only is he feeling uncharacteristically tired, he feels thirsty, too, and does not particularly want to chance drinking water out of a stream. Without a pot to boil it, who knows what diseases could be caught? Food is less of an issue, what with dead animals apparently being _lootable_ for their meat and fur, and raw meat being edible in this game.

But he is yet to find a source of _water_.

He enters the inn.

It’s smoky, warmed by a massive open fireplace in the middle. People are sitting at tables, talking in hushed voices.

He heads for the innkeeper standing behind the bar, eyeing the foods laid out- and the hovering red prompts of _Steal_ above them.

Getting arrested is not on his list of things to do today, so he is careful to avoid even touching them.

He glances at the innkeeper.

 _Talk_ , a helpful prompt appears. Does this game have a prompt for _everything_?

“Hello?” he tries.

“How may I help you?” the innkeeper responds, and a list of dialogue options appears.

Well, that makes…. gathering information considerably more complicated, if he can’t ask what he wants.

There’s an option for renting a room, buying something, asking about rumours, getting a water refill, asking about local tourism, and… asking where to learn about magic? Perhaps there is a benefit to guided dialogue; this would not have occurred to Kisuke right off-hand.

“Where do I learn about magic?” he says.

The option stops glowing white, and fades to a grey.

“Magic ain’t very popular around here, but I guess you could go to the Jarl’s court wizard, or that mage college in the north, near Winterhold.”

_Map updated._

What is a Jarl? Some sort of regional authority? That sounds most likely.

Map… he has a map? Useful.

“What do you have to sell?” Kisuke goes for the next useful option.

Instead of a reply, a menu opens up.

He skims through it.

The only things he can buy from this person are either in the food and ingredient categories, and as he already knows that raw things are still food- does that mean those are alchemy ingredients, to match the alchemy skill?

Well, as he has no idea how to find an alchemy lab, that doesn’t matter.

He can sell his own food, too, but…

Kisuke frowns at the value of the bear meat he acquired thanks to the accidental help of a bear. Its value is greatly reduced from what it is in his inventory. Is it a debuff he’s somehow acquired? Or something else at play?

“Skills,” he murmurs, and skims through them.

 _Speechcraft: affects buying and selling prices, as well as shouts_ , a helpful description reads.

So his skill is simply too low for good prices? He sighs. Cooked food is so expensive, he would really rather just keep eating raw bear meat, and save the money for more important things.

“Finish,” he says, and the menu vanishes. “I’d like a water refill.”

_3x 3/3 Waterskins added. 15 gold removed._

Three drinks per waterskin? Useful. And perhaps they can be refilled at wells, or somewhere else.

Time to gather some information, and then sleep. “Heard any rumours?”

The innkeeper nods, still mechanically wiping the same mug he was when Kisuke started talking to him. Seems NPCs here are _not_ sapient.

“Heard the boy, Aventus Aretino, is trying to summon the Dark Brotherhood in Windhelm.”

_Map updated._

_Quest Begun: Find Aventus_ Aretino _._

He checks the Quest log and sees a new tab. Miscellaneous Quests.

First miscellaneous quest found, then. Interesting. Will all non-main quests go here?

“How is business?”

The innkeeper sighs. “That’s not going well, not with the haunted barrow just a short distance behind the inn.”

Two new dialogue options appear.

“I could check it out for you,” Kisuke says. Not right now, of course, it will be when he next passes this area to clear it, but he will. He would like more combat experience in this game first, to make sure nothing unfortunate happens in what sounds like this game’s version of dungeons.

“Would be much obliged,” the innkeeper says, still continuing his idle animation.

“I would like to spend the night.”

_10 gold removed._

“Here is your room, right that way,” the NPC points at one of the side rooms.

Kisuke goes inside, curious, and closes the door behind him.

The bed is covered in furs, and the prompt _Sleep_ is above it.

Right, he wanted to check the map out first.

“Map,” he calls, and it appears. Like the skills menus, it covers everything.

It is… big. Assuming the entire area is ‘playable’, there is… a lot of ground to cover. Windhelm is a city to the northeast of here, at the foot of some mountains.

Winterhold, and the Mage College, are even further North. Likely the most north-eastern location on the map, with the exception of some dungeons.

A perfect starting point for clearing the game, then, especially if he can advance his magic skills there.

But first, sleep.

He lies down on the bed and closes his eyes.

 _Sleep for how many hours?_ the game asks.

He considers it. None of his conditioning or abilities seem to have carried over, the game avatar operating on some sort of simple baseline. “Eight,” he says eventually.

That is probably a reasonable amount.

He hopes.

* * *

The closer he gets to Windhelm, the seat of the rebellion against the Empire, the colder it gets.

Even with a fur cloak and gloves and boots and hood picked off an assortment of bandits who are no longer in need of such things, it is _cold_ , and Kisuke takes care to avoid being outside as much as possible, taking long breaks in the mouths of caves or ruined buildings. He hopes he can find a way to enchant things soon; constantly swapping between the Novice Hood of Magicka, and the Fur Hood when battles finish and end is a pain.

Casting Flames on himself is not, apparently, a valid way to stay warm according to the game, but it _is_ a great way to get hurt, and very burnt.

At the very least, health automatically regenerates in this game, even without the consumption of food or potions, the red bar ticking up to full. If rather slowly.

He walks along the bridge to the keep, averting his gaze from the food stalls. His inventory is so full that even a single point more would remove his ability to sprint, as well as slowing down his normal movement.

He needs to sell off all the junk first, and _then_ consider the pros and cons of wasting money on something that isn’t raw or roast meat. Useful as it might be that cooking in this game just means putting ingredients in the pot at a random bandit encampment or camping spot and getting finished food right out, four days of nothing but meat are getting a little on his nerves.

“-maybe you’re an Imperial spy!”

Kisuke hears as he enters the city gate, and turns his head to look at the source of the disturbance.

Two humans are accosting a dark elf.

“I tell you, we do not take a side in this war because it is not our fight!” she replies, frustrated.

The men storm off in a huff.

“Dunmer, foreigners, rats, all of them,” one of them mutters. “Skyrim belongs to the Nords, as Ulfric says. They have no place here.”

Interesting. So the Nords who are trying to break free of the Empire are also all insular nationalists. Which… may make things interesting for Kisuke in this city. If they dislike non-locals and non-humans so much. While he has so far failed to find a _mirror_ , the golden hue to his skin and his _pointed_ ears are certain signs that he’s very much not local, or human.

He wanders around, looking for a place to sell his things off. There must be shops in a city, after all.

The smith in the south-west section of the city only buys and sells weapons and non-magical armour. The apothecary shop, which dispenses a random fetch quest for something called a White Phial, only takes ingredients and potions. He has more luck in the eastern part of the city; he finds a general goods store which buys everything, and he leaves with an almost empty inventory. As well as about three hundred coins richer, which is enough to buy a massive wheel of cheese. At least his Speech skill has leveled up twice during this selling spree, reaching a level of twenty-two.

On the way out of the city, he notices stables, and a cart parked nearby.

“Hello?” he asks an NPC sitting on a rock nearby.

“Would you like to hire the carriage?” the NPC replies.

Hire a carriage?

The dialogue options list springs up, with locations and prices.

Dawnstar, Falkreath, Morthal, Markarth, Riften, Solitude, Whiterun… _Winterhold._

For the price of 50 gold coins, which is about fifteen cloaks looted from corpses, or all the meat from a bear, he can skip walking across the snow and get to the city immediately?

More importantly, he doesn’t have to fight yet _another_ snow bear on his trek to the distant city?

“Take me to Winterhold, please.”

_50 coins are removed._

* * *

“Conjure a Flame Atronach, and you will pass the test to enter the College of Winterhold,” says Faralda, the elf at the base of the long bridge structure leading to the College of Winterhold.

An admission test. Of course.

“I do not know how to cast that spell,” Kisuke replies, sighing.

“I can sell it to you for thirty gold. Would you like to buy it?”

He stares. Thirty gold is _nothing_. A wheel of cheese costs two to three hundred gold- as long as he’s not the one selling it, of course, because if he is selling it then it is only worth thirty coins. What kind of spell only costs thirty gold to buy?

“Yes, please,” he says. NPCs, as it turns out, don’t need him to say exactly what the options say, just something along those lines; they just won’t respond to any other statements. Perhaps they’re simply not created with the requisite knowledge in the first place.

 _Not enough Magicka to cast spell_ , flashes in the top left of his vision when he equips it and tries to cast.

He frowns, and checks the details of it.

Two hundred sixteen points of Magicka to cast a Flame Atronach to fight for him, an Apprentice level spell.

He only has one hundred twenty points of Magicka thanks to investing in it after frying so many bandits and bears with it, and leveling up twice more. Hundred fifty with the Novice hood equipped.

...Does the Conjuration skill tree have spell price reduction perks?

He checks.

He would need two perks, and a conjuration level of twenty-five.

His current conjuration level is twenty.

To level it up, he needs to conjure things.

To conjure the Flame Atronach, he needs to level up his skill and buy the price reduction perks.

Or find more useful equipment to reduce spell prices as well as increase Magicka stores, or go and level up, then invest in increasing his Magicka reserves.

...Well, he was going to start doing quests and clearing dungeons once he reached the most north-eastern point of the map.

Joining wizard college will have to wait.

Kisuke stares at the ever-growing pile of infinite fetch quests in his quest log. Which one should he start with?

* * *

Kisuke _glares_ at the Quest Log, and then the map littered with quest markers. Many quests simply take place _too far away_ from the actual quest giver, and given that he has no desire to run there and back across the whole map to some random location to find a random necklace or jewel or what have you.

Well, the dozen-and-some side quests, and twice that number of quests in the miscellaneous tab, can just wait their turn.

And the worst thing is that he’s only _just_ three-quarters down to the south edge of the map from Winterhold, a short distance away from Riften. There are so many quests, and he has covered so little ground.

This will take months, if not years to clear at his current rate.

There were enough quests that he could complete, at least, for him to do so much walking and monster hunting and levelling up, that he can get into the College of Winterhold now.

Frankly, the Flame Atronach spell is… almost _broken_ , permitting him to hide in the shadows of corridors and doorways while the summoned Atronach sets fire to the _undead_ (and why people here _bury_ corpses rather than burn them if undead-ness seems to be a common problem, Kisuke frankly can not understand). Or, in bandit or evil wizard dens, he finishes off the human opponents, which do not have a weakness to fire.

Still.

Far, far too useful, for something that cost only thirty gold.

Although, on balance, with how many times he has almost died… perhaps the spell isn’t broken. Just balancing out the odds.

The fast travel function, however, is frankly _cheating_ , even if he needs to eat and drink and rest if travelling too far, and can not use it when inside dungeons or houses.

Free, easy travel between places, without needing to cross freezing terrain, or travel at night. Wasting coins on sleep and water refills is a fair price to pay for using it.

Time to return to the College.

* * *

He zones out as an NPC whose name he can not remember for the life of him talks through the introduction to warding magic.

Unless he can get a truly obscene Magicka reserves, or cheapen the spells, they’re a waste of Magicka, with how quickly they drain it to nothing.

“We will meet at the Saarthal ruins excavation in the evening, for some practical experience looking at wards,” the NPC says, finally finishing talking.

_Objective: Meet Tolfdir at Saarthal after dark._

It’s… a distance away, and a worrying trek through snow and ice and over some mountains.

Well, he has little choice, even if it looks like there’s no material benefit to being part of the College. Other than a free bed in the Hall of Attainment, which is admittedly nice. It’s much comfortable than inn beds, or random sleep rolls that he appropriates for a night, once he clears a bandit den it lies inside.

He has little inclination to see what happens if he fails a quest.

* * *

 _Doom_ and _destiny_ and _fate_ are three of Kisuke’s least favourite words, he thinks, as he listens to the apparition of the strange monk. Tolfdir is frozen in mid-action nearby, the air full of grey mist.

“Hold, mage, and listen well... Know that you have set in motion a chain of events that cannot be stopped.”

Kisuke zones out a little as the monk continues to talk without actually _saying_ anything of value. What is this NPC _actually_ here for, to tell the player that they’re starting a big quest line, and to be extra careful about not dying?

“Take great care, and know that the Order is watching.” The mysterious monk nods, and vanishes just as he came.

What a cryptic monk. Kisuke probably does deserve it a little, karmically, because being a cryptic weirdo can be _far_ too amusing with far too few repercussions to incentivise him to not be one in the real world. But still.

Cryptic, _useless_ , monk.

And now there are some more monks apparently acting as voyeurs. Eurgh.

* * *

In Kisuke’s experience, spherical objects emanating great power are the portent, cause, and focus of bad events.

The hovering glowing orb about twice as tall as he is, guarded by a Draugr so strong one hit almost killed him, and which he had to run around the room to avoid, killing it via his flame atronach? Probably everything _but_ a good thing.

Someone is going to die because of the ball of doom, he thinks as he meanders through the cave system to get outside, and fast travel to Winterhold to report the orb to the Archmage.

Maybe if he just ignores Hougyoku Version Two, it will go away?

...But there’s no time limit on the quest, so that is unlikely. It will simply float and wait for him to resume the questline.

* * *

Kisuke decides he is officially not fond of enemy mages that specialise in summoning. As useful as the Flame Atronach is on his side, _fighting_ against one, or _several_ of them, as the case may be, is not very easy. Especially not when the mages that summoned them are also still running around shooting Ice Spears and Fireballs at him.

He ducks behind a pillar, drawing his bow. It’s an upgrade from the first one; this one is an Imperial Longbow, dealing about three more points of damage than the original.

A bolt of fire whizzes over the pillar.

Tempting as it may be to deal with the enemy Flame Atronachs, they’re currently distracted by his own. He should deal with the summoners instead, or they’ll just replace the vanquished summons. He shoots the wizard on the top of a ruined tower in the head, the arrow striking a little off his intended target. It’s not fatal _enough_ , because the mage is immediately surrounded by a swirling yellow glow. Healing magic.

But a second arrow puts a stop to that.

Bows might be a little weaker, and his aim is questionable, but he can shoot two arrows faster than most spells can be cast.

There’s the sound of a triple explosion; all three Atronachs dying and exploding upon doing so. Just the one mage left then, unless she re-summons her Atronach.

Kisuke summons his own Atronach back, keeping the spell ready in his left hand, and equips _Sparks_ to his right. Lightning magic apparently _doesn’t_ interact with water, for whatever broken physics reason, but it does drain both health and Magicka from his opponents, making it as useful against mages as Flames are against the undead.

Right. Kill mage, get into the fortress, find the book thief, pick up every food item he passes to replenish his food stores in the inventory, find the books, probably fight some kind of boss to get the books, then get back to the college librarian.

He should get a move on. He doesn't have the time to waste on pondering enemies and their weaknesses when out in the open.

* * *

Dwemer is the local official name for dwarves. Not that they seem to be dwarves in the traditional elves. Here, all pointy-eared humanoids - dwarves, orcs, high elves, wood elves, dark elves - come from one common ancestor, which technically… probably makes them all elves?

Not that Dwemer are around anymore to prove their resemblance to their kin with anything but the statues they left behind in their underground cities after they vanished centuries ago.

Kisuke stares at the entrance to the underground location. White walls with a brass metal trim, pipes and chimneys emerging from the cliff face, are all very different from the rest of Skyrim’s architecture.

It seems Dwemer were also far, far more technologically advanced than the rest of this country, possibly continent, possibly the planet. He is certain he can distantly hear grinding gears and the whistle of steam. And those lamps on the outside are _electrical,_ or at least are powered in a way that uses mechanical contraptions, even if that isn’t electricity.

Whatever is in there - other than a hint to the location of the Staff of Magnus, needed for the menacing orb that is apparently the Eye of Magnus, that is - is not going to be very fun to encounter. Or fight.

He checks his inventory.

Worst-case scenario, he has three invisibility potions, each lasting eighteen seconds. He can leave and live to fight another day, if the boss is too tough. Then return once he’s leveled up, or has thought of a better strategy to deal with it.

The door swings open with ease. It reveals a small antechamber, with a fresh corpse of some wizard inside it.

The Archmage said there would be some mages, Synod researchers or something, who might arrive at the place before he did. Well, seems like they certainly _got_ here, and then died here.

He walks through the corridors, half-crouching, listening for whatever it was that killed the wizard.

The groaning of the massive pipes making up half the walls, as well as the pipes locked behind or under or above grates set in everything, the creaking and billowing of steam escaping through cracks makes it _difficult_ to hear the hint of anything that _shouldn’t_ be there.

If he was one of those cat-humans, Khajiit, maybe it’d be easier. Or possibly just incredibly overwhelming, it is difficult to tell.

There’s a strange metal clicking and scuttling up ahead, and Kisuke readies the Flame Atronach spell in one hand and lightning in the other.

A spider-like contraption the size of a dog scuttles through the open area at the end of the corridor. Metal.

Better go with lightning rather than flames. He doubts his fire will be particularly harmful to something that likely won’t _burn_ very well.

If anything other than blunt force will have an affect on it, anyway.

Well, it is likely he’ll have ample opportunity to test out any and all hypotheses as he clears this ruin. There’s likely to be plenty of specimens to test his ideas on.

* * *

Kisuke ducks as steam billows through a hole in the pipe, and then hurriedly steps back, hopefully out of the sight of that rolling ball of metal murder.

For all that the Dwemer have been extinct for so long, their fortresses still work more or less fine. And so do their defences, in the shape of either spider-like robots, or orbs that unfold into humanoid, two-armed killing machines with a ball for legs.

Very competent killing machines, strong and deadly, but not very _smart_ ones.

As long as Kisuke is sneaking, and casting his Flame Atronach from sufficiently far away, they don’t notice him. And _they_ don’t regenerate health, unlike wizards.

But unlike wizards, they are armoured, have far more of that health, and hit _far harder._

And this _particular_ sphere-soldier seems far, far stronger than the average sphere-soldier.

Kisuke’s arm still aches where it got hit, despite his health bar being back to full after a dose or five of healing potions.

He holds his breath as he creeps forward.

Cast Atronach. Scurry off far enough that by the time it is dead and the robot is investigating, he’ll be somewhere too far for its search protocols to include.

Rinse and repeat until it’s dead.

He has to say, however. So far, complex Dwermer constructs are certainly his least favourite opponents, on par with summoner mages. Those, at least, are much more vulnerable to arrows. And much more flammable.

* * *

He _called_ it. The menacing orb has already killed two people by the time he starts the next portion of the quest; the Archmage and his assistant die in front of him. Admittedly they are killed somewhat indirectly, driving a high elf mage to madness and a possessive obsession with the orb, but still. It has killed.

And now he has to go get the Staff of Magnus to shut down whatever it seems to be evolving into. It is located in a ruin that was sealed by the Archmage himself decades ago, which is not inspiring a great deal of happiness in him.

Considering that the entrance chamber alone has a reanimated dragon skeleton, which takes almost half an hour of frantic avoiding and distracting with the Flame Atronach to put down… Whatever is at the end of it will be bad news for certain.

* * *

Trapping two friends to keep sealed a resurrected ancient horror is a practical move in the short term, perhaps But couldn’t the Archmage have assembled a small army of competent mages, returned, and killed it dead for a second time, permanently putting it to rest instead of springing this surprise on the first person to enter the ruin after he died, and the seal on the place fell?

Kisuke curses, ducking down to lay flat on the pillar to avoid detection. This _Dragon Priest_ has managed to take control of yet another of his Atronachs.

At least they are dispelled after a minute, so he does not have a horde of them, and they still seem to deal _some_ damage to him. And he doesn’t detect Kisuke’s spell-casting. But it is going to take a _while_ to kill him, if the Atronach sides with the Priest half-way through its brief life.

At least he has both food and water with him, even if he is getting sick of eating cheese, raw meat, and leeks. Perhaps he should spend some more time on assembling ingredients and cooking… but unlike bandit dens or necromancer hives, tombs and Dwermer ruins are not very rich in non-rotten food. And that’s where he’s been spending most of his time as of late.

* * *

There is something _incredibly_ embarrassing about dying due to fall damage by misjudging the way he was going to skid and run down the mountain. Ridiculous collision physics in this game are to blame, he is certain.

He sits down where he stands, at the location he was at five minutes ago, and eyes his exposed wrist. The three black stripes, something he thought were this body’s tattoos, are now reduced to two. They are, almost _certainly_ , his lives.

He has to assume he only gets one more free pass. And somehow, he doubts this is the type of game where he can get more of them.

He _has_ to be more careful now that he _knows_ he can die.

* * *

“And you are now the Archmage of the College. Do not worry, you do not have too many responsibilities - most of the day to day affairs can be handled by whoever is appointed as Master Wizard,” Tolfdir tells him cheerfully. “The Archmage Robes and Circlet are now yours, as well as the Archmage Quarters.”

Kisuke stares.

_Archmage’s Robes added. Savos Aren’s Circlet added._

And keeps starting as the NPC stands there, frozen.

He knows a total of seven spells by now. _Flames, Sparks, Healing, Healing Hands, Summon Flame Atronach, Candlelight, Stoneflesh,_ and _Frostbite._

Only one of them is above Novice level.

To put it crudely, what the _fuck_.

At least he now has a better permanent place of residence? And possibly-useful items.

But how did he clear what seems like it should be a much higher level quest at just level ten? And why is he the Archamge, despite likely being the least qualified person in the College, and possibly the country?

He glances at his inventory.

The robes grant fifty points of Magicka, double Magicka regeneration speed, and decrease the cost of all spells by ten percent. The circlet increases his Magicka by _seventy_ points.

...Forget the defensive values that come with wearing armour instead of wizard clothes, this means he can spend his level up bonuses on health, or stamina, and just ignore magic. And make up the difference in protection by wearing the heavy armour gauntlets and shoes to make up for the zero defensive value of the robes and circlet. Even if the combination will look like it came out of the garbage bin of an adventurer’s thrift store.

He wanders to his new quarters, and looks around. Books, tables, a bed- and an Arcane Enchanter for enchanting equipment, along with an alchemy lab table.

There’s a book near the Arcane Enchanter, _The Making Of Soul Gems_.

He picks it up, curious. He keeps finding these stones everywhere, full or empty, but has not a guess as to what they actually are.

He reads.

Then he closes the book, sets it down, and sits down on the floor with a heavy exhale.

Enchanted equipment in this world is created by combining an item, enchantment, and soul gem. And soul gems are created by using a spell to trap animal or creature or monster souls in soul gems after they die. Or human souls, trapped in special black soul gems. And those souls will power the enchantment.

It’s not real, of course, they are not truly _alive_ , just generated for this hellscape of a world, they’re not truly suffering, but… Kisuke stares at the gems in his inventory. It’s not possible to free them, he knows, the gems are as unbreakable as most of the rest of the ‘useful’ items in this world. But, well, he doubts he’ll be filling up the empty ones after all.

The ones he has are sufficient for his needs and improving the equipment in his possession.

It’d only be pragmatic to fill the empty gems rather than simply rely on the ones he buys or finds, and he is a pragmatic person. And yet… and _yet_ , even using the already filled ones, just doesn’t sit too well.

But ising souls as fuel is so much like _Aizen._

Even if they’re not real.

Kisuke sighs.

Well, this room has plenty of alchemy ingredients which he now owns. He should collect them, make potions, and sell them down in the town.

Apparently levelling up particular skills is an option with certain NPCs- and an expensive one. If he doesn’t want to empty his gold reserves every time, he needs to make a lot more money.

* * *

A brilliant idea occurs to Kisuke as he glances at the prices he can sell his potions for in the apothecary and the prices of the ingredients he can buy.

If he buys the cheapest ingredients, then makes the most expensive potions possible from them at the handy alchemy table, combining three ingredients per potion for maximum effect. Then sells them back to the shopkeeper.

Well, he could make a profit without even leaving the store. And if he fast-travels between the towns to collect more ingredients to make the most expensive potions possible... He could make a _lot_ of money. Enough money to not need to worry about paying the skill trainers for the five upgrades he can get every time he levels up.

Perhaps he could even repeatedly level up simply by improving his Alchemy and Speech skills by making and selling potions. And thus unlock more perk points, without risking his very, very limited reserve of lives to level up skills in combat, and thus eventually level up in general.

Even better, once he has enough money, he could grind his skills and increase his money by buying smithing materials, then making armour and weapons and jewelry, buying soul gems, enchanting the crafted items, and then selling it all. Before starting over in the next town, having emptied the blacksmith’s reserves of ore and leather.

So ridiculously exploitable, and so easy to do. How can he resist? The only danger here is being driven mad by the apothecary shopkeeper reciting the same three lines while he brews potions.

Well then. Time to grind skills _and_ get rich in a nice, easy, effort-free manner.

Then he can work his way down the map, after a nice, long, profitable break.

* * *

Clearing the College quest seems to have convinced the game he is at a much higher level than he is, because suddenly, all the enemies are much, much stronger. Higher-levelled, more complex opponents appear among others, slightly weaker ones. Stroner opponents appear more _commonly,_ too, making up a higher percentage of enemy mobs.

Kisuke is frankly _ecstatic_ by the time he accidentally starts a quest line to join the down-on-its-luck Thieves’ Guild, so he can postpone starting what is likely the assassination guild quest line. Sneaking and thieveing, and training in sneaking and thieving, that he can do.

Extorting or racketeering people not so much, but as the dialogue options with the targets reveal, the quest-givers don’t need to know that he is providing the money out of his own pockets, And he can make the other missions more palatable, if less profitable, through the correct dialogue lines as well.

Stealing money from a honey farm but not burning the hives to impress the seriousness of some matter to the owner, that is easy. Halting the operation of a meadery and convincing the owner to sell his product in places that don’t compete with an ally of the Guild, also easy. Not very nice, but not as horrible as it could be, either.

 _Less_ easy is the quest line that emerges from that: finding a mysterious person who seems keen on sabotaging the Guild’s outside supporters, to weaken it further.

* * *

“It is Karliah,” the head of the Guild Mercer Frey tells him when Kisuke brings back some new information, after a little bullying of the Guild’s contact who likes to embezzle goods from a ship port. “She was an old friend, before she killed Gallus, the previous Head of the Guild. We know where she is, now. We will go get vengeance.”

Kisuke has little choice but to agree to do so, even if something feels a little… off.

* * *

“You go ahead,” Mercer says at the entrance to the barrow their supposed enemy is in, and Kisuke raises his eyebrows, knowing the NPC won’t be able to tell, or react to, facial expressions.

Shouldn’t the more experienced member, someone more familiar with traps, lead? Or is Kisuke meant to be some canary in the coal mine, be caught by some trap too hidden even for the head of the guild to avoid, and so save his life?

* * *

He has to say, he really, genuinely did not expect a stab in the back to be quite so _literal_.

He looks forward to repaying it, once he and Karliah track down the man who embezzled from the guild for years, killed the guild head when he got found out, framed the witness, and then continued embezzling.

“Don’t get up so fast, I’ve only been able to patch up so much,” he hears Karliah say.

Yes, he can _feel_ that in his aching back. He dearly hopes it will not carry over back into the real world. He has enough residual aches there as is, ones even his Bankai couldn’t fix despite many attempts.

“I have Gallus’ journal, which is the proof we need for the guild… but it’s written in code.”

Kisuke flops back on the bed roll, letting the quest update itself with the goals and information automatically, not listening to her.

Maybe he should drop by the College. Spend a few days sleeping and eating. Taking a break.

Hearing the NPCs say the same lines over and over again until he wants to never see a single one of them again.

A peaceful life, for a short while.

Would it be so bad? Just a rest for his body, a break from being stabbed-roasted-frozen-shocked-shot?

Yes, unfortunately. He does not want to delay returning back home, to Yoruichi and Ichigo and Tessai and the children. Who knows how much time has passed, how many weeks he has been missing for.

He _must_ get back.

* * *

“In life and in death, you will protect the Twilight Sepulcher, giving your soul to Nocturnal,” Karliah explains, and Kisuke stares.

How literal, exactly, is that promise? Would doing it make him unable to _leave_ the game? If so…

“Are you ready to swear the oath?”

He needs to know more.

“I need some time to think about it,” he says, and leaves in a hurry.

He’s not swearing his soul to the eldritch abominations that play with mortals like toys, the ones the locals call _Daedra._ The Shrine of Boethiah with the corpses and everything was enough to put him off all of them for the rest of his _existence_.

Right. There was that vampire-fighting questline, the Dawnguard or something, with a quest marker pointing to the most south-east corner of the map. That ought to be the last stop before starting to clear a somewhat more western strip of the map.

Perhaps _that_ one will be less of a headache.

* * *

Clear burial site, done. Find the ancient vampire Serana with an _Elder Scroll_ on her back, whatever that is, done. Bring her home to her family, done.

Walk _into_ her home to meet her family? Kisuke doubtfully eyes the massive black castle. The line of dormant gargoyles leading up to it is not very promising to say the _least_ , and the whole structure is likely going to be infested with strong, deadly, and probably hungry vampires. And he’s a mortal, their natural food.

Walking in there would be like serving himself as dinner on a silver platter to them.

And he’s part of the vampire hunter organisation.

He glances at his wrist. He can only afford to die one more time.

But the quest simply can not be completed without going in.

Well, there’s nothing for it.

He walks through the door, following Serana as she is greeted by another vampire, who calls out into the rest of the castle about her return.

The inside _reeks_ of blood, both fresh and old, and he’s tempted to leave.

But the quest marker moves along with Serana, until she meets some older, more-distinguished looking vampire. Her father?

Kisuke listens to them with only half an ear as they exchange words, choosing to instead look around the dining hall, at the barrels and jugs and goblets on the tables. They are all certainly full of blood, judging from the splatters on the floor, anyway, and the bits of humans on plates.

There’s even whole corpses.

Then he hears a soft groan, and Kisuke realises the bodies on the table are _still alive._

“I thank you for returning my daughter to me,” the vampire talking to Serana suddenly says, and Kisuke’s body is spun around by the game, forcing him to interact. “What is your name?”

There’s two options, and Kisuke doesn’t think there’s a point in trying to conceal his name. It’s not like he’s anyone important, other than the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, and no NPC seems to ever register that fact, or comment on it. “I am Kisuke,” he says.

“Well met. I am Harkon, lord of this court. By now, my daughter will have told you what we are."

Three options, this time, and Kisuke _can’t_ help himself, and he hopes Ichigo and Yoruichi will forgive him if he dies today because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“You're a reclusive cannibal cult,” he says, and braces for a fight. Not that most of the NPCs seem easy to offend unless they turn up already intending to fight.

Harkon laughs un-insulted. "Not entirely correct, though I can see how an outsider might arrive at that conclusion. We are the Volkihar clan vampires, among the oldest and most powerful in Skyrim."

Oldest and most powerful.

Is the quest conflict going to be between the Dawnguard and _these_ vampires? Then he should be presented an opportunity to join, or leave, or it would be unfair to the player.

...In which case, the leaving is probably something along the lines of _fighting his way out_ , and exiting via a window, perhaps, because the game is certainly _buggy_ , setting enemy levels so far above his own no matter where he goes.

“I think you deserve a reward for returning my daughter to me, as well as the Elder Scroll.” What is she, a possession? “The only gift I can offer of sufficient value is my blood. Accept, and become a vampire.”

There’s a dark ripple across the vampire’s form, and he transforms into a large, hovering, grey-skinned creature with a face like a bat, torn, thin wings stretching from his back.

Unappealing, to say the least. Especially the face. If the disease follows him out of the game… he would rather not kiss Ichigo with that mouth.

Still, it is curious how it is different from the effects of the game’s usual vampire infection, the _Sanguinare Vampiris_ which does not grant a transformation, and can, in the first three days, get cured with a potion or by a healer.

“This is the power of a vampire lord! Accept, and you will walk as a wolf amongst sheep. Refuse, and just this once you may leave unharmed, but after that, you will be prey - as all mortals.”

Kisuke is not one for _faith_ , usually, but perhaps he should thank the gods in this game just this once. They do seem to actually exist, after all.

“I refuse,” he says, enunciating it clearly so there can be no mistale.

“Well then. Be gone!” Harkon declares, and casts a spell.

For a moment everything goes dark and he feels a jolt in the ground upon which he stands. He stumbles.

When he opens his eyes, blinking away the dark, he’s outside the castle once more.

He should look into cures for vampirism, just in case he gets infected, or needs to become a vampire for some other section of the quest, and then decides he wants to stop being one. Although, perhaps the game will then offer a side-quest of getting a cure for it, without need for prior investigation...

Well, he will see what happens when it comes to it. For now, he should report to Fort Dawnguard.

* * *

“Could you deliver the message about the dragon threat to the Jarl of Whiterun?” asks the NPC from the beginning of the game, Hadvar, and Kisuke wants to hit himself. He should have followed him to Riverwood. Of course. The idle dialogue about parting ways was annoyingly misleading, and he missed this clue to progress the main quest line. This game is very good at being misleading.

Well, at least he should be levelled enough to be able to take on such an early stage of the main quest with ease. He’ll deliver the message, do one or two more main quest steps for a change of pace, then resume the Dawnguard quest line.

* * *

He really, _really_ is not fond of fighting Draugr Deathlords, and their weird, magical Shouts which fling him clean across the room and into the wall. He really isn’t.

* * *

So, apparently, the _real_ Hollow counterpart of this game isn’t using souls for enchantments, it’s being a Dragonborn that can devour the souls of dead dragons.

Like him, apparently. Because of _course_ he is the _protagonist_ of the game. And only the Dragonborn can save Skyrim from the rising threat of the dragons returning, which means that the protagonist must be one. Dragons that are returning from extinction to randomly wreak havoc.

At least, he finally knows what to do with those weird words he absorbs from walls that are found in some barrows and on some mountains. He can spend dragon souls to unlock the words, and Shout them for assorted, and _powerful_ magical effects.

As long as he can hide somewhere while his Flame Atronach attacks the dragon… he should be able to acquire more dragon souls with relative ease.

More importantly, their scales and bones are worth a _lot_. He can make a neat profit off them, especially with a Speech level of 80.

Perhaps he can look into that letter he got a while back from a courier. He opens his inventory to re-read it.

“ _Kisuke,_

_“Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Jarl of the proud and ancient city of Falkreath. I am Siddgeir._

_“Word of your great exploits has reached me from across Skyrim, and if you are interested in becoming Thane of my hold, I invite you to visit and speak with me. Aside from the honor that comes with that title, my Thanes are entitled to a personal housecarl. Privately, I will also tell you that I can offer you a choice parcel of land should you wish to purchase it, as long as your services prove to be of use to me._

_“I look forward to meeting you in person._

_“Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreth.”_

He doubts he had the money to purchase land or build a house before, but with this new source of income… a place to safely store unique equipment and supplies, to deal with his _constantly_ running out inventory space would be useful. And Thane of Whiterun though he may be after killing the dragon attacking that watchtower, he is not certain he wants to purchase property within the city. Not if it gets sacked due to the civil war.

He’d like to look at some other options first.

* * *

Apparently dragons not only appear at the mountain-located word walls that were delightfully unoccupied previously, but they also _follow him across the land_. Like some sort of creepy stalkers.

And unfortunately, random fields don’t convenient covers and buildings to hide in., forcing him to move and hide and dodge the dragon’s assorted breath weapons. Fire, frost, magic and health and stamina dragin, lighting, acid, lava, and so many, many more types of attacks.

_Why is this game trying so hard to kill him?_

He curses, and hopes he isn’t going to fall off the mountain on his way to meet some reclusive monks who will teach him about being a Dragonborn, just because yet another dragon decided to have him for lunch. Or, considering the size difference with some of them, perhaps a toothpick.

He shoots yet another arrow at the dragon and it finally dies.

He eyes the corpse, fallen on the mountainside… and turns away. Fall damage is a ridiculous way to waste a life, even if he might get almost a thousand coins out of it. It’s not like there is a shortage of dragons.

He’d rather get a move on with climbing this mountain, which is only getting _colder_ the higher he goes.

He really hopes the seven thousand steps journey the NPCs keep mentioning isn’t literal.

* * *

Why can’t the NPCs in this world get to the _point_. Kisuke is near vibrating with boredom by the time he finally escapes the conversations with the Greybeards.

As useful as it was to learn the last two words of the Unrelenting Force Shout, and the first word of the Whirlwind Sprint, it was _boring_.

Now he’s on a quest to raid a burial ground and retrieve the horn of Jurgen Windcaller, the founder of the Greybeards.

Glorified fetch quest, really, and _still_ less boring than listening to them.

* * *

 _I have taken the horn. Meet me in the Inn in Riverwood, rent the attic room_ , the note had said at the tomb of Jurgen Windcaller.

Kisuke reads and re-reads it as he sits in the room he paid for, waiting for something to happen.

Who, and _why_ , and is this a trap? Probably.

There is a knock at the door, and the innkeeper, Delphine, enters.

“So you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about. I think you're looking for this.” She holds up a horn. “We need to talk. Follow me,” she says without preamble.

He follows her curiously to her room, where she opens the wardrobe- and then a hidden panel at the back of it. Subterfuge and hidden room, how fun.

A corridor leads down, into a hidden basement, and Kisuke enters it curiously.

"The Greybeards seem to think you're the Dragonborn. I hope they're right,” Delphine says, finally turning around to face him.”

Kisuke almost says “Sorry, I'm supposed to be meeting someone here,” but resists the urge.

It would probably have been funny, but… better not tempt fate.

“I just came here for the horn,” he answers instead.

"And now you have it. No harm done. I knew the Greybeards would send you for the horn if they thought you were Dragonborn. Taking it was the only way I could be sure this wasn't a Thalmor trap."

Why would the empire of the high elves be trying to trap a random innkeeper who has ancient grave robbing as a hobby?

"Like I said in my note, I've heard that you might be Dragonborn. I'm part of a group that's been looking for you... well, someone like you, for a very long time. If you really are Dragonborn, that is. Before I tell you any more, I need to make sure I can trust you." She is glaring at him. Is it because he’s a high elf, or is she just not fond of people?

A group? Looking for a Dragonborn? What is it, a cult? Interesting.

“Why are you looking for a Dragonborn?” he asks.

"We remember what most don't - that the Dragonborn is the ultimate dragonslayer. You're the only one that can kill a dragon permanently by devouring its soul. If you really are Dragonborn. You will need to prove it to me - and I know where one will rise next."

“How?” If a species is migrating back into an old territory from an unknown location...

"Dragons aren't just coming back, they're coming back to _life_. They were dead, killed off centuries ago by my predecessors. Now something's happening to bring them back to life. And I need a Dragonborn to help me stop it." She sounds very certain, but so do a lot of madmen.

Still, that sounds very bad, if it is true. But what does she have as proof for her theory?

“What makes you think dragons are coming back to life?“

"I've visited their ancient burial mounds and found them empty. And I've figured out which will be resurrected next. We're going to go there, and you're going to kill that dragon. If we succeed, I'll tell you everything."

That seems like a reasonable deal. After all, anyone could send out a rumour that they are Dragonborn. Of course, this could all be a trap.

“How did you figure all this out?”

"The dragonstone you got for the court wizards, remember? It was a map of ancient dragon burial sites.” Delphine points at the table. “I've looked at which ones are now empty, and whatever is happening seems to be spreading from the southeast, down in the Jeralls near Riften. The one at Kynesgrove is next if the pattern holds."

Oh. He’s certain he’s seen what she’s talking about, then.

“I know that mound - high on the hill east of Kynesgrove.”

Delphine looks happy. "Good. Good. Now we won't have to spend time searching for it. Get ready, and we move out.”

* * *

Kisuke watches as one dragon resurrects another with a strange, unfamiliar Shout, and frowns. He’s certain… that was the one at Helgen. He waits for it to leave before starting to attack the new one.

Challenging the end-game boss right now is probably not a good idea.

With the dragon dead, and its soul spent on the second word of the Frost Breath Shout, Kisuke turns to Delphine, waiting for the promised answers.

"I owe you some answers, don't I? Go ahead," she says.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?” Kisuke starts with the first dialogue option.

"I'm one of the last members of the Blades. The Blades were dragonslayers, and served the Dragonborn, the greatest dragonslayer. For the last two hundred years we have had no purpose. Until now.”

“What do you know about the dragons coming back?” He suspects the answer, however, and is proven right.

"Nothing. So the first thing we need to do is figure out who's behind the dragons. The Thalmor are our best lead. If they aren't involved, they'll know who is." She sounds very confident.

Privately, Kisuke has a feeling that the one behind bringing the dragons back is the dragon that was literally resurrecting the dragon that Kisuke just re-killed.

“What makes you think the Thalmor are bringing dragons back?” he asks politely.

"Nothing solid. But my gut tells me it can't be anybody else. The war was basically over with Ulfric’s capture. Then a dragon attacks, Ulfric escapes, and the war is back on. And now the dragons are attacking everywhere, indiscriminately. Who else gains from weakening Skyrim and the Empire but the Thalmor?"

That is… logical, but it does not feel correct.

“Why are the Thalmor after you, specifically?”

"We once tried to fight them, thinking them a threat to Skyrim, as we are allies to the Empire. We overestimated ourselves. We must be careful, now."

Even more enemies. Well, at least Serana is around to aid him. When she isn’t chipping away at his sanity with her repetitive dialogue, or accidentally getting detected by enemies while he is trying to sneak around.

“We need to find out what the Thalmor know about the dragons. Do you have a proposal?”

"The Thalmor Embassy... it's the center of their operations in Skyrim. Problem is, that place is locked up tighter than a miser's purse. There will be a party there soon. Infiltrate it. Meet my contact Malbron, in Solitude, for more details.”

Oh, this is bringing back _memories_ of his youth.

* * *

It turns out to be a massive waste of time, start to finish. From handing over some equipment to Delphine’s contact for him to sneak into the party, to actually doing so, creating a diversion to get into the off-limits areas, snooping through all the documents he could find, and then leaving.

At least, with his features and wearing stolen Thalmor armour, it was downright _easy_ to get in and out.

“What now?” he asks Delphine.

She sighs, looking very disappointed.

“Did you learn anything else, anything that could be useful?”

“They're looking for someone named Esbern.”

"Esbern? He's alive? I thought the Thalmor must have got him years ago. That crazy old man... If they were trying to find out what's going on with the dragons, it makes sense they’re looking for him."

“What does he know?” Kisuke asks, curious. Esbern. That sounds… familiar.

"Esbern was one of the Blades archivists, back before the Thalmor smashed us during the Great War. He knew everything about the ancient dragon lore of the Blades, to the point of obsession. I guess he wasn't as crazy as we all thought, now." Delphine shakes her head.

“They seem to think he's hiding out in Riften,” Kisuke says.

"Riften, eh? Probably down in the Ratway, then. It's where I'd go. Talk to Brynjolf. He's... well-connected. A good starting point at least. Oh, and when you find Esbern, you may have some trouble getting him to trust you. Just ask him where he was on the 30th of Frostfall. He'll know what it means."

Oh that’s why it is a familiar name! That mad old man in the Ratway, in the sewers behind the Thieves’ Guild pub and hideout.

* * *

Escorting a half-insane old man is not Kisuke’s idea of a great time, and he fast travels from Riften to Riverwood the moment he can.

He doesn’t put much stock in prophecies generally, but he supposes game rules are not real world rules, and this old man is actually not spouting complete senility-inspired drivel.

 _Objective: Gain Entrance to Sky Haven Temple_ , the game tells him, drawing his attention to the conversation between Delphine and Esbern.

He really, really hopes they’re not going to follow him as he tries to find it. _One_ follower with repetitive lines is trouble enough.

* * *

A prophecy about a Dragonborn standing up to Alduin, and stopping the end of times. And the only way to stand up involves some long-lost shout, the Dragonrend.

Back to the Greybeards it is.

Kisuke can already feel the impending boredom from how _long_ it takes them to explain anything, peppering every conversation with vague ominous statements about the misuse of power, and the virtues of inaction and not lifting a single finger to help those in need, even when having so much power to _help_.

* * *

“Paarthurnax, our leader, may know of the Dragonrend. You will need to learn all three words of the Clear Skies shout to reach him at the mountain’s peak. We will… teach them,” one of the Greybeards says reluctantly, and Kisuke wants to thank him for finally explaining what to do.

Climbing a freezing cold mountain is less of a chore than talking to them. Especially with a quest marker to guide him.

* * *

Kisuke stares at what the quest marker is pointing at.

A dragon.

The leader of the Greybeards… is a dragon. Which makes sense - who better to teach the language and power of dragons, than a dragon? "Greetings. I am Paarthurnax. Who are you? What brings you to my strunmah... my mountain?"

His voice rumbles out like thunder, dragonspeech mixed with the other language. At the least, he doesn’t seem hostile.

“You are the master of the Greybeards?”

"They see me as master. Old and wise. It is true I am old..."

A sense of humour. Why can’t the other dragons be as nice to encounter?

“I need to learn the Dragonrend Shout. Can you teach me?”

"Patience. There are formalities which must be observed, at the first meeting of two of the dov."

Dragon culture? But then, since they speak, he shouldn’t be surprised they have their own customs, even if they are of different minds than mortals may be.

"By long tradition, the elder speaks first. Hear my Thu'um, my Shout! Feel it in your bones. Match it, if you are Dovahkiin! Yol...Toor...Shul!” A powerful gust of fire washes over him before he can duck, but it does not harm, merely chases away the freezing chill of the mountain. A word forms on the ground, as with the Greybeards when they were sharing their knowledge with him.

“A gift, Dovahkiin. Toor. Understand Fire as the dov do."

The second word of the Flame Shout, and the power to unlock it without consuming another soul. Kisuke lets it surge through him, settle, dissipate.

"Now, greet me as a Dovah," Paarthurnax instructs.

Kisuke shouts, and feels it singe his throat, the burn and ashy taste stronger than before.

The dragon shivers as the fire washes over him, and then stretches, shaking his massive head. There are scars on his neck, his wings, visible with the snow and ice washed off.

"Aaah... yes! The Dragonblood runs strong in you. It is long since I last had the pleasure of speech with one of my own kind. But I have expected you. No one would come all this way for tinvaak, for a chat, with an old dragon. You seek your weapon against Alduin."

Kisuke blinks.

“How did you know?” "What else would you seek? Alduin and the Dragonborn return together, it was long foretold. But I do not know the Thu'um you seek. It cannot be known to me. Your kind created it as a weapon against us. Our minds cannot even comprehend its concepts."

Ah, makes sense, in a way. Shouts are understood in the very soul, their meaning absorbed and becoming part of the wielder. A Shout meant to hurt them… It would be like poison to them, to consume the understanding of that.

“Is there another way to learn it?”

"Perhaps. First, I have a question for you. Why do you want to learn this Thu'um?"

“I must stop Alduin.”

"Yes. Alduin... Zeymah. The elder brother. Gifted, grasping and troublesome, as is so often the case with firstborn. But why? Why must you stop Alduin?" Paarthurnax shifts on the wall, and lowers his head to be level with Kisuke’s, a great yellow eye staring at him.

 _Because this is a quest and I want to go home_ , Kisuke wishes he could say, but that’s not an option.

“I like this world. I have no wish for it to end.”

"As good a reason as any. There are many who feel as you do, although not all. Some would say that all things must end, so that the next can come to pass. Perhaps this world is simply the Egg of the next. Would you stop the next world from being born?"

Kisuke frowns.

“The next world can take care of itself. It is our duty to take care of ours.”

"A fair answer. But perhaps you only balance the forces that work to quicken the end of this world. Even we who ride the currents of Time cannot see past Time's end... Those who try to hasten the end, may delay it. Those who work to delay the end, may bring it closer.”

Yes, yes, unintended consequences exist, but they have little to do with _fate_. Just the sheer complexity and unpredictability of the world.

"But you have indulged my weakness for speech long enough. Now I will answer your question. Do you know why I live here?"

Well, considering that the Blades, who once were dragon hunters, are still around… “For safety from dragon hunters?”

"True, in part. This is the most sacred mountain in Skyrim. The great mountain of the world. Here the ancient Tongues, the first mortal masters of the voice, brought Alduin to battle and defeated him." Paarthurnax shifts, shaking some snow from his wings where it’s started to build up in the light snowfall.

“Using the Dragonrend Shout, yes?”

"Yes and no. Alduin was not truly defeated. If he was, you would not be here today, seeking to defeat him. Those old Dragonborns crippled Alduin. But this was not enough. It was the Elder Scroll, that banished him from their time, cast him adrift."

“An Elder Scroll…” Finally, more of an explanation for that thing Serana carries on her back. “What is that?”

"Hmm. How to explain in your tongue? The dov have words for such things that mortals do not. It is... an artifact from outside time. It does not exist, but it has always existed. They are...hmm... fragments of creation. The Elder Scrolls, as you name them, they have often been used for prophecy. But this is only a small part of their power.."

“Are you saying the ancient Nords sent Alduin forward in time?”

"Not intentionally. Some hoped he would be gone forever, forever lost. I knew he would surface. Which is why I have lived here. I knew where he would emerge but not when. For millennia I have waited for the Dragonborn to come, so I could pass on the knowledge of how to learn the Shout."

Kisuke frowns, not understanding.

“How does any of this help me?”

"Time was... shattered here. If you brought that Elder Scroll back here to the Time-Wound... With the Elder Scroll that was used to break Time, you may be able to... cast yourself back. To the other end of the break. You could learn Dragonrend from those who created it."

_Quest Completed: Throat of the World._

_Quest Begun: Elder Knowledge. Objective: Find the Elder Scroll._

Kisuke rubs his temples. Fate. Prophecies. Time travel. How _annoying_.

When they couldn’t kill the dragon Alduin, the Dragonborn of the time managed to banish him into the future. For someone else to deal with.

And now that someone else is him.

That feels a little on the nose, actually, but he will choose to ignore the possibility that the game is telling him to sort out how to get the Hougyoku out of Aizen before his multi-thousand year sentence is up.

And now he has to track down that same scroll, in order to learn a power that didn’t actually kill the dragon, and is thus probably overall _useless_? And only after completing _this_ quest will he be able to find out the true way to take down the dragon?

What a _nuisance_ , even if it does make for a more interesting story for someone to experience when playing this game, rather than trying to survive it.

He’ll go work on the Dawnguard quest line some more for now, since that one also wants him to find Elder Scrolls. Maybe that’s less headache-inducing. “This must be the beautiful Skyrim weather I’ve always heard about,” his follower says behind him, and his headache suddenly intensifies.

Why, _why_ do followers have to have _such_ limited repertoires of dialogue? She’s said that at least three times in as many minutes.

* * *

After watching the Moth Priest, that they so painstakingly tracked down across Skyrim, go blind after reading Serana’s scroll, Kisuke turns to Serana, prompting her to speak.

“My mother, she must have answers about this. Or at least, still have the other Elder Scroll. But with my father seeking to kill her, after she removed me and this Elder Scroll from his reach… I have no idea where she went,” Serana tells him. Kisuke frowns.

“Where is the last place your father would look? That would have been the wisest location for her to hide in,” he says, deviating a little from the offered dialogue option.

“I don’t… Of course, the garden courtyard at the castle. We can enter the castle through the back door, then get there.”

Easy enough, other than the slight possibility running into an entire army of vampires. He should stock up on potions to Cure Disease, just in case he catches the early stage of vampirism while fighting the vampires. Again.

Time to fast travel to the island… and then go for a very, _very_ cold swim.

* * *

Kisuke brushes ash from the latest burned draugr off his robes, following Serana into the open courtyard. The place, to put it politely, does not look good.

"We've made it to the courtyard. Oh no... What happened to this place? Everything's been torn down... the whole place looks... well, dead. It's like we're the first to set foot here in centuries."

They almost certainly are. But that doesn’t mean the woman they’re looking for _hasn’t_ been here at one point. He wanders around, looking for clues.

Serana is staring at the ground.

"Something's wrong with the moondial here. Some of the crests are missing and the dial is askew. I didn't even know the crests could be removed. Maybe my mother is trying to tell us something?"

Ah. Perhaps it’s some kind of door? Replace the missing pieces of the dial, and it will open.

Fifteen minutes later, he finds the last piece and places the lot of them on the empty slots. There’s a soft grating sound, and then it moves, revealing a staircase going down.

This part of the castle is _ruined_. And filled with a mixture of gargoyles and the undead, and Kisuke internally apologises to his poor follower as he liberally casts fireballs all over the place, setting her on fire as well.

Thankfully, she is immortal, and does not seem to notice his misfires.

At long last, they reach some sort of study, Kisuke coughing from the bonedust in the air. When is the last time someone cleaned this place?

Something about the room’s layout, the design feels… it’s deliberate, in some way. It’s set up to do _something_.

Only thing left to do now: find out _what_ it does.

He has a feeling it might be a portal.

He starts reading through whatever journal and books are still intact, until he finally finds it.

The diary.

“ _I have done it. I have opened a portal to the Soul Cairn,”_ the first line reads, and Kisuke feels quite happy to have been proven right as he skims the rest of the entry. The ingredients necessary for opening it are some finely ground bone dust, purified void salts, and soul gem fragments. All plentiful in this room.

In short order, the portal is up, in all its glowing, menacing glory.

“We must go into the Soul Cairn to find my mother,” Serana says. “It is a plane of Oblivion, where the human souls captured by black soul gems go, where they suffer for eternity as they are drawn on for power.”

Kisuke eyes the massive portal on the ground, the strange staircase that leads down into the light. So apparently, they’re literally going to some kind of hell.

“Unless you are a vampire, you will be severely weakened in that place. If you want, I can turn you, and then you can look for a cure once we are done with the Soul Cairn.”

Ah, here it is, an opportunity to be a powerful vampire but still remain on the side of humanity.

Kisuke considers it for a moment. Serana does not seem particularly affected by sunlight, or hunger for blood. And, as she said, at worst… he can look for a cure, if it proves too intolerable.

Dying on a quest because he lost too much power to survive combat would truly be a waste of a life.

“Please turn me,” he says, and braces himself.

Serana nods. “Stand still.”

Kisuke closes his eyes for good measure, not particularly interested in watching something bite his neck.

Everything flickers, for a moment, and then…

 _You have become a vampire,_ the game tells him cheerfully. _New skill tree available; unlock perks by killing non-undead enemies in Vampire Lord form._

Ah. Well, if it is as powerful a form as it looks, perhaps clearing mage and bandit strongholds will be much easier.

He heads down into the Soul Cairn, blinking away the light until he is suddenly in a very, very different place.

Still on a spiralling staircase, but far above the ground now, overlooking a barren landscape dotted with black stone ruins and dead trees and a creeping mist.

And in the distance, pillars and towers and a distant fortress loom, no helpful quest marker to find Serana’s mother with ease.

He notes a shining, translucent figure sitting on the ground as he steps off the staircase, and heads for it. It must be one of the trapped souls - perhaps it has some useful information.

"I can't remember how long I've been here. Has it been a day or a century?” the vague shape says. Their voice echoes, indistinct, and Kisuke restrains a shudder, hurrying past it once he realises it doesn’t respond to him.

Hopefully, this place will not take too long to explore.

Hours of walking through the unnerving world of the dead later, they find Serana’s mother, Valerica, trapped behind a magical barrier.

“How has it come to pass that a vampire hunter is assisting my daughter?” she sneers at Kisuke. “It pains me to think that you have used her so in order to hunt me down.”

How quick to pass judgement. Sadly, there are no suitable dialogue options to tell her that.

“I have been keeping her safe,” he says instead.

"Coming from one who murders vampires as a trade, I find it hard to believe your intentions are noble. Bring her here, too, out of the crypt, and closer to Harkon? Is that safe?"

Considering she was going to be found soon anyway… yes. At least this way, she knew of potential allies.

“That is why we seek the Elder Scroll in your possession, to know how to stop him.”

"You think I would have trapped my daughter in that tomb for the sake of one pitiful scroll? Serana herself is the key to Harkon’s goal."

What?

“What do you mean?”

"The Scroll I presume you found with Serana speaks of Auriel and his arcane weapon, Auriel's Bow. The second scroll declares that ‘The Blood of Coldharbour's Daughter will blind the eye of the Dragon.’ I and Serana are both Daughters of Cold Harbour, former humans who became vampires as a gift from our Lord Molag Bal, who once we worshipped. Our blood will taint the bow irrevocably."

“Are you saying Harkon means to kill her?” Kisuke asks, eyebrows raised. Then why did Harkon not do so when they first met him?

"If Harkon obtained Auriel's Bow and Serana's blood was used to taint the weapon, the Tyranny of the Sun would be complete, and vampires would walk in the day as strong as they are at night. In his eyes, she'd be dying for the good of all vampires. But he does not yet have the bow, and the blood has to be _fresh._ "

Ah. Fresh, okay. “I would never let her die,” Kisuke says. Frankly, she is too useful a follower NPC, at the very least, as annoying as her repetitive lines may be.

"And how exactly do you plan on completing the prophecy without the death of my daughter?"

“I'll kill Harkon.”

"Don't you think I weighed an option _that_ obvious before I enacted my plans?" She sounds truly unimpressed with him.

“Perhaps you should speak with Serana,” Kisuke says, picking the last available dialogue option.

Kisuke waits for them to speak, too quiet for him to hear, and scans the horizon. Three distant, scattered pillars glow, ever so slightly. Perhaps they are connected to this barrier?

"Your intentions are still somewhat unclear to me. But for Serana's sake, I'll assist you in any way that I can." Valerica calls his attention back to her.

“Do you have the Elder Scroll with you?

"Yes. I've kept it safely secured here ever since I was imprisoned. Fortunately, you're in a position to breach the barrier that surrounds these ruins."

“What do we need to do?”

"You need to locate the tallest of the rocky spires that surround these ruins. At their bases, the barrier's energy is being drawn from unfortunate souls that have been exiled here. Destroy the Keepers that are tending them, and it should bring the barrier down."

“We'll return soon." He has no inclination to stay here any longer than necessary.

“One more word of warning. There's a dragon that calls itself Durnehviir roaming the Cairn. Be wary of him. The Ideal Masters have charged him with overseeing the Keepers, and will undoubtedly intervene if you're perceived as a threat."

Ideal Masters?

He’ll ask later. Maybe. Talking to NPCs always leaves him with a faint headache.

The Keepers are _difficult_ opponents, so Kisuke leaves Serana and the Flame Atronach to deal with them, and takes potshots at them with his bow from a safe distance, until all three are dealt with, and the barrier is depowered.

"You managed to destroy all three Keepers? Very impressive,” Valerica says, and Kisuke would feel smug if it wasn’t for the fact that Serana did most of the work.

“Are you able to give us the scroll now?”

"Yes. Please, follow me. Keep watch for Durnehviir. With the prison's barrier down, he's almost certain to investigate."

Is _nowhere_ free of dragons?

They walk through a gate, and into the castle’s courtyard.

Immediately, of course, the dragon turns up.

Kisuke summons the Atronach before he even forms a single coherent thought about the situation. He breaks into a sprint, hiding behind a stone block as the dragon opens its mouth and unleashes a Shout.

The dragon will use its breath weapon on the biggest living source of harm to it, so as long as he doesn’t do more damage faster than his Atronach, and the two vampires, he should be safe. Probably.

“ _Fo krah diin,”_ he shouts as the dragon hovers in place to breathe fire at the vampires, and frost and ice tear from his throat, chilling his lips, and draining his energy.

He’ll never quite get used to these dragon shouts, he thinks.

Two minutes to recharge. Then he can use it again.

It takes six and a half minutes to take down the dragon, but Kisuke is certain it isn’t actually dead. Not something meant to be so powerful. So he wastes no time on retrieving the Elder Scroll, and getting back out of the castle courtyard, ignoring half the dialogue in his haste to leave, picking up on just enough to know that Valerica will not follow them.

Reasonable, that leaves fewer ways for Harkon to fulfil his prophecy.

The dragon is waiting outside, perched on a tower, but-

Kisuke starts sneaking before it notices him, and flees.

He’s had enough dragons for the day.

* * *

 _The sun is painful to you,_ the game says the moment he fast-travels to Whiterun to sell off the treasures he found in the Soul Cairn. He shudders as his skin burns for a few seconds, before fading into a dull, distant discomfort.

So there are drawbacks to vampirism after all, even though Serana does not look affected. But they do not seem too terrible, so far, even if the burn from the sun is not _comfortable_.

Of course, he needs to go test out the whole Vampire Lord transformation affair.

He can clear some of the miscellaneous quests for a change, perhaps, clear out some bandit dens, deal with some dwarven ruins, figure out where it is most effective. And if it is not useful, then he can seek a cure.

Maybe, if he’s strong enough in that form to make up for the power gap between him and the enemies, he can resume the main questline, and go retrieve the Dragon Elder Scroll to learn Dragonrend, and get some practice using it before he hunts down Alduin.


	2. Chapter 2

“Kisuke-san?” Ichigo calls out, wandering through the back of the store. Yoruichi said she hadn’t seen him since last night. She said he’s probably tinkering with something in his lab or in his room, having lost all track of time.

He’d handed over the broken _Elder Scrolls: Oblivion_ edition of Jumanji yesterday. While safe in its current state, what with being broken into literal pieces and thus unplayable, he still didn’t really want to leave it in his house where someone could find it. Or if he took it with him, to be repaired by curious, tech-savvy flatmates. It’s not like _Kisuke’s_ at all interested in games, as far as Ichigo’s aware. And Ichigo made sure to make the box’s contents sound as boring as possible in order to avoid waking Kisuke’s curiosity.

Kisuke is not in the lab, however. Ichigo hopes he’s not about to wake him up as he knocks on the door, and then slides it open.

But there’s no one in the dark and empty room, illuminated only by a computer screen.

A computer screen with a very, very familiar picture on it.

The Septim Empire’s symbol.

And worse, instead of _New Game,_ it’s _Continue_ written on the screen.

Well, that answers the question of where Kisuke had vanished to.

_Fuck._

Ichigo glances at the game’s case lying innocently nearby.

 _Skyrim…_ He hasn’t been there before. The first time he was on an island in the Morrowind region, and the second time he was in Cyrodiil. But it should be in the center-north of the continent.

And the game only got bigger and harder with each iteration, which means- he has no idea what kind of massive mess of quests Kisuke landed himself in, how much harder to survive the game has become this time.

Guess he’ll find out in a few moments anyway. The first to go in will be the main character, so all he’ll need to do is follow rumours of some great hero with a weird and unique title, and he should be able to find Kisuke just fine.

Probably.

He clicks _Continue._

* * *

Something is wrong.

Being drawn into the game as a secondary character can lead to unpredictable results, he knows, because the computer game version is _different_ from what he’s learned of its previous incarnations, and primarily meant for one victim at a time. Which makes it go wonky when there’s more than one person playing it.

Still, this…

He opens his eyes, and turns his head. And keeps turning his head, because it’s attached to a very, very long neck, which in turn is attached to a long, scaled, _winged_ body.

...There weren’t any dragons in Tamriel, haven’t been for centuries. Is this in the past, or a very distant future?

Well, at least he’s not a _horse_. Or a chicken. 

“Quest Menu,” he mutters, but no screen appears. It’s changed again, different from both Morrowind and Oblivion.

“Quests?” Nothing. “Quest line.” Nope, not that either. “Quest log?”

A black screen appears in mid-air, with a sidebar listing the active quests on the left, and the quest description and active step on the right.

There are several dozen named quests, and a bunch more under the miscellaneous tab. Ichigo groans.

Clearly, the game hasn’t gotten any smaller.

Right, he’ll figure out the main quest lines later - if al of them have even been found at this point, anyway. 

And that Dragonborn quest, at a glance… considering that killing a dragon is the end goal of that quest, it seems that dragons are not well liked by the NPCs. Will his current form make them hostile if he approaches? He better test that before trying to get into a city.

Now, to figure out how to trigger the skill and inventory menus, which are no longer linked to the quest log.

Seriously, who designs this user interface?

“Character stats? Abilities? Skills?” he asks the empty air. Nothing.

Well, maybe dragons don’t have skills.

“Inventory? Items?” 

Another black screen pops up, but in the category under his name is nothing.

Okay, that… sort of makes sense. It’s not like an initially NPC dragon can wear anything. Probably. He might be able to pick up stuff to carry later, however.

Now comes the worst part of not being the main character.

“Map?” he calls out.

Nothing.

Urgh.

Oh, there’s one menu he hasn’t tried.

“Magic?”

The screen only has two options, _Favourites_ , of which there are none yet, and something called _Shouts_.

Right, he better get familiar with those fast, because if something attacks him-

Well, hopefully, the game avatar will still be able to move just fine even if he doesn’t consciously know how to operate it, as it had done with the sword-fighting and archery and everything else it had let him do the last two times he played it.

* * *

“-I will be eternally grateful,” the warrior lady finishes, and Kisuke nods absently. Yet another errand to fetch an item from a dungeon. The game really isn’t that creative about the miscellaneous quests, unless this is one of those that will trigger some bigger questline when the sword is actually picked up or something.

Like that quest to find a dog, which turned into a whole mess of trying to return the weird canine spirit to his Daedra master.

If not for the limitation on inventory space, he’d just clear every location and find all the quest items by virtue of seeing what he can’t throw out of his inventory due to the game restrictions.

So, now he’s off to Mzinchaleft.

Another Dwemer ruin.

Well, with his new ability to summon two Atronachs at once, and his companion following him, that should be survivable, if not necessarily _easy._

If only this world had earmuffs, however, the endlessly repeating lines from the vampire are long past starting to hurt his ears. Perhaps there’s a spell to temporarily cause deafness? Or better yet, to silence the target for several minutes. Or days.

“I’m no fan of the sun, but even that is better than this,” she says right at that moment, and he doesn’t even care to restrain a groan anymore.

The lack of reactions to his expressiveness is not doing anything good to his already-lacking ability to maintain a poker face.

Why did the game give her so few lines, and half of them about the _weather?_

* * *

Ichigo eyes the torn sail laid out on the ground. After several days of travel, it's considerably less _white_ than it started out, and considerably more grey and brown. Hopefully, it’s still white enough to work for what he needs.

Tracking Kisuke down is proving a pain in the ass. While he doesn't seem to be keeping a low profile in the _slightest_ , rumours of Dragonborn this and Dragonborn that being pervasive to the point that he's heard random _bandits_ talk about him, Ichigo still has a tiny, tiny problem with actually accessing those rumours. Namely, every NPC running for the hills or the nearest weapon the moment they catch sight of him.

Why couldn’t he have been a horse?

And Ichigo can't even _kill_ any of them because how the _heck_ is he supposed to know if they have a quest or not, because clearing the fucking game depends on clearing the vital quests, and it does not _always_ protect its fucking NPCs. Anyway. Worst comes to worst, that Become Ethereal Shout in his inventory should probably save him from the dragon-killing Dragonborn, if his best approximation of a white flag of surrender doesn't.

Hopefully.

Kisuke is sometimes far, _far_ too smart for his own good, and might figure out how to circumvent even the Become Ethereal shout.

Anyway, the latest rumour he's been able to catch was that the Dragonborn was heading for Mzinchaleft. A Dwemer location, he can tell just from the name, and Ichigo has _all_ the sympathy for Kisuke because Dwemer were, objectively, paranoid genius fuckers with too much time on their hands. Rather like Kisuke, actually. 

So maybe Kisuke is enjoying witnessing all those feats of engineering, knowing him. Even the ones attempting to violently murder him. 

Ichigo won’t be surprised, per se, if Kisuke manages to get a pet Dwemer construct, and bring it out of the ruin with him.

Or build one outside the game, which would be unfortunate, because Ichigo’s had enough nightmares of that crap to last him a lifetime without a Dwemer spider trying to cook him breakfast or do his laundry or something.

He circles the skies in the general vicinity of where Mzinchaleft ought to be, until the _Location Discovered: Mzinchaleft_ prompt shows up.

The entrance is at the bottom of a small, fortress-like building littered with the bodies of dead bandits, but Ichigo can’t tell for sure where the exit will be. Unless Kisuke will somehow fail to reach it and have to go out the way he came, he will almost definitely _not_ be exiting the ruin where he went in. 

Urgh, _fucking Dwemer ruins._

Well, he can take off for a short flight every once in a while.

Kisuke will certainly not miss an opportunity to fight a dragon, with the way the game urges the player to grow stronger by killing bigger opponents. Nevermind that in this game, the dragons seem to be the protagonist’s natural opponents.

Ichigo’s about to take off when his instincts scream, and he ducks, narrowly avoiding an arrow and a bolt of flame.

A human attacker and… a mage or flame atronach? There’s a second flame coming already. Make that two spellcasters.

And an ice spike?

Make that _three_. Or maybe one mage and two Atronachs.

He doesn’t waste a second on taking off, white sail in his mouth.

It won’t be impossible to be hit in mid-air, but staying on the ground is certainly the _less_ safe option, with so many attackers.

NPCs don’t have very good aim, as a rule.

He flies high, trying to see who exactly his opponents are.

“ _Joor Zah Frul!”_

The shout hits him in midair, and he experiences dizziness so great he almost drops out of the sky, some kind of strange, lingering dread washing over him.

That was a dragon shout, which means- “Kisuke-san!” he yells, scrambling back from another volley of fireballs and ice spikes and arrows. “It’s Ichigo!”

He’s not sure how legible that is, however, or whether Kisuke would be listening for words from an enemy.

“ _Feim Zii Gron,”_ he shouts, and he hopes Kisuke’s not found a way to circumvent magic that turns one ethereal and untouchable.

Hopefully, he’s won himself a few seconds.

“Don’t attack,” he yells out again, and waits.

No attacks are forthcoming, this time, and then two shapes emerge from the treeline.

A human, and, from the unusual height of them, a high elf. Maybe that’s why they’re called high elves, because they are _tall_.

“Ichigo-san?” calls out the latter.

That _must_ be Kisuke.

“It’s me,” he answers, and lowers his head to the ground, walking close until he’s close enough for Kisuke to touch.

He… doesn’t look well. His face suggests that his avatar got two eyefuls of lightning blasts, branching white scars standing out against an altmer’s gold skin, which is an extremely sickly pale colour for an altmer, and the eyes themselves are… the sclera are pitch-black, the pupils and irises a burning gold and red.

The direction of the wind changes, and Ichigo can smell blood and undeath.

He’s a vampire.

“You’re here,” Kisuke says, sounding surprised. “You… Why, how? How long have I been missing?”

“A few hours,” Ichigo says. “I came here to get you out, this place- it’s great at tricking people. Getting out is harder than it looks. I’m glad that- _are_ you okay?”

“Alive. Or, well, undead, I suppose. In one piece. I have successfully cleared many quests, but so _many_ still remain,” Kisuke says, exhaustion seeping out. “I’m about half-way through this map, and then there’s still the island of Solstheim that another quest leads to, which will doubtlessly have its own extra quests and locations. I have no inkling of its actual size, or what else may be found there. Clearing this- will take more weeks, months. I have lost count of the time I have been here.”

Ichigo shakes his head.

“Then I have good news for you. We only need to find and clear the main quests - the other quests are a trap, some of the side quests are just endlessly respawning, a distraction.”

Kisuke looks distinctly relieved. “How do we tell which ones are the main ones?”

“The biggest ones, ones that deal with the whole of Skyrim, apocalyptic-type ones. There’s a civil war- that’s one thing we almost definitely need to solve. The Dragonborn quest line, as well. There might be others.”

Kisuke blinks, and frowns thoughtfully.

“Yes, I did get a quest to join the Imperials or Stormcloaks,” he says slowly. “I have been putting it off in favour of clearing the smaller quests for better equipment and levelling up. Perhapshe Dawnguard questline was also a main one.”

“Dawnguard?”

“Long story, an ancient vampire went insane and decided to try and curse the sun.”

Sounds interesting- is that how Kisuke ended up undead?

Kisuke brings up the Quest Log, and lets Ichigo skim the quest description for it, and then the other active quests.

“The island quest you mentioned is likely an important one as well,” Ichigo concludes. “Just because it governs an area of its own. How is the level of difficulty this time? The game was harder the second time, but not so much that I couldn’t clear it.”

“The non-basic enemies are very difficult, I use my follower and Atronachs to clear the dungeons while keeping hidden from sight,” Kisuke explains, and Ichigo frowns. Or tries, anyway; dragon faces aren’t very expressive.

The game isn’t supposed to be hard to the point of not being survivable alone, and Kisuke, with all his combat experience, surely shouldn’t have trouble dealing with enemies whose skills are scaled to be on a similar, or at least _beatable_ level.

Unless. Unless Kisuke has thought of a great way to grind skills and earn money outside of combat, and the game _retaliated_ , as it loves to.

“Kisuke-san, what are your highest-level skills?”

“Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, Sneak, Pickpocketing, and Speech,” Kisuke answers immediately. “All of them are the maximum level of one hundred.”

Ichigo has a sinking feeling. “And what is your strongest combat skill?”

“Destruction and Conjuration, both at fifty-five.”

Well, that explains it. Kisuke had assumed enemy levels were determined by location or quest level, not overall player level, and did not realise the consequences of grinding his skills like that.

“The game scales enemies according to the level of your highest skill, even if it a non-combat one - which means if you have very high non-combat skills, and very low combat ones, enemies will easily overpower you.” Ichigo explains. “Did you somehow literally level them all in one go, or something, without encountering enemies in the meanwhile?”

Kisuke makes a sound of understanding. “I maxed out the crafting skills in order to make money to buy or make better equipment. I have around four hundred thousand gold now, which is _quite_ convenient for buying skill level-ups from trainer NPCs.”

Ichigo tries and, due to the structure of his current mouth, fails to whistle. That is a considerable amount of money to have in the game.

“How many lives do you have left?”

“One,” Kisuke answers. “Fell off a cliff once, got sat on by a dragon the second time.”

“Then I give one of mine to you,” Ichigo says firmly. “No point in me being able act a little more recklessly, if you die in exchange for that freedom.”

He will not leave this game without Kisuke by his side.

One of the black stripes on his back leg - the game changing the location of the markers, as dragons have no front legs, just wings - vanishes. The transfer ought to be successful.

* * *

“So, are we siding with the Empire or Stormcloaks?” Ichigo asks. “I’d say Imperial, but the events of the two times I was in here were a long time ago, maybe things have changed.”

“Imperial,” Kisuke says decisively. “The Stormcloaks may have a point that a foreign power shouldn’t control the local religion, but they’re also all exceptionally xenophobic, and as long as the forbidden Talos worship is private... the Empire itself doesn’t seek it out with enthusiasm. But the Stormcloaks want to be allowed to worship what they want, ignoring the demands from the Thalmor.”

“Great. Hey, do you think since I’m one of your followers now, the NPCs will quit attacking me?”

* * *

“If only we could shrink you down,” Kisuke says wistfully, staring at the pile of dead bandits that used to protect the keep. The Imperial Legion sent him in here to clear them out as a test before admitting him into their ranks. Not that he did a lot of the work. “Then you could follow me into buildings and ruins and barrows.”

Ichigo makes a noncommittal noise as he Shouts and breathes fire at the door to the keep again, killing the latest bandits to emerge from there. Kisuke shoots the only survivor of the group. Most likely the leader with how much more health points he must have had than the others, to survive the flame.

“Perhaps, if the Wabbajack can still turn things smaller…”

Ichigo lets out a panicked yelp.

“Nope. We are _not_ experimenting with the Wabbajack. We are _not_.”

“It only transforms things into other things, as well as has some other random effects,” Kisuke frowns. “Or at least, that is what it did during the quest I got it. Why are you so worried?”

“Sometimes, it just transforms a person into a corpse,” Ichigo explains. “And I don’t really want to be a corpse yet.”

“Ah.”

* * *

Ichigo sticks his head through the door into the fortress they’re supposed to capture, and bites through a bandit. Gross, but effective, and it’s not like Kisuke doesn’t have to do his own share of nibbling on people to deal with the negative effects that accrue from being an unfed vampire.

Still, it’s kinda gross, and the metal crunches on his teeth pretty unpleasantly.

He can’t wait to get out of this game.

* * *

“Deliver this axe to Jarl Ulfric,” the Jarl of Windhelm orders.

Kisuke blinks, and exchanges a glance with Ichigo, who managed to stuff himself into the Dragonreach Hall with some _exceedingly_ creative maneuvering.

“An axe?”

“How long have you been in Skyrim? Yes, an axe. If he returns it, then there is unfinished business between us.”

Ah. A cultural thing.

Well, that’s an easy quest, as long as Ulfric doesn’t decide to shoot the messenger.

Just some fast travel to Windhelm and back.

And then probably defend Whiterun from an invasion, if Ulfric takes offense. As he probably will.

Well, with a dragon and a vampire as part of the defence, normal Stormcloak soldiers will be _ridiculously_ easy to wipe out.

* * *

“Careful with your aim!” Kisuke yells over at Ichigo, hissing at the burn from the fire. His vampirism makes being set on fire a considerably unpleasant experience - not that it is nice in the first place.

He ducks behind a barricade to catch his breath, and drink a health potion before going back into the fray. The waves of soldiers attacking the city seem endless.

Two health potions to restore lost health, one potion to speed up health regeneration… He eyes the fire resistance draught, and then downs it.

It should negate his weakness to fire for the next minute, and make it a little easier to pick off the stray soldiers that Ichigo’s flames miss. Without dying to Ichigo’s own misfired attack.

At that moment, he hears the distant boom of his Storm Atronach and Flame Atronach exploding together.

Ichigo probably accidentally burned them down, again.

Well, this is why Kisuke keeps his magic solely for summons now, and sticks to bows and swords for dealing damage himself.

* * *

The battle against Ulfric is… anti-climatic to say the least.

Ichigo doesn’t go into the palace, because in such a confined space he’s more likely to get injured than deal out damage, but he watches the battle through the door.

The NPC legionnaires on Kisuke’s side make short work of Ulfric’s guard, and Kisuke and his vampire follower deal with Ulfric, Kisuke cheerfully letting his Atronachs take the brunt of Ulfric’s shouts.

Ichigo wonders, idly, how the man can use them, but shrugs it off. The game does stuff that is inconsistent with its own story, like letting someone become the servant of every eldritch god in existence at the same time. Even ones that are enemies.

Perhaps, especially ones that are enemies, and hate each other’s guts, because being able to serve opposing sides is… weird.

Huh. He should ask Kisuke who he’s promised his soul to so far. Hermaeus Mora seems like a good bet, at the least, and maybe Azura.

“We sentence you to death,” the general of the army says, and Ichigo watches Kisuke grimly carry it out. And then loot Ulfric’s corpse of its unique character armour, leaving the corpse not only headless, but also clad in nothing but underwear.

Ah, the good old Jumanji-induced kleptomania.

Watching Kisuke absently try to put everything in sight into his no-longer existing inventory when they get home will be _hilarious_.

* * *

“...” Ichigo stares at Kisuke.

“Corpses in this game don’t go away, and looking at child corpses on the street because they didn’t have a house to run into when a dragon attacked would be too depressing?” Kisuke tries.

Ichigo continues starting incredulously.

“I couldn’t _leave them,_ ” Kisuke explains, cheeks slightly pink, despite being an undead vampire. “I know they’re not real, but… well, they don’t really take any resources to keep, and I had the house built, and apparently all it takes to adopt a child here is to tell them you have a house and a bed for them, so really, it was an accident.”

Yeah, like Ichigo’ll buy that last bit. Well, the first time, maybe, but...

“...You are saying you managed to adopt a child by accident _six times_?”

“Ah. Maybe?”

Ichigo sighs, and extends his neck further, getting a better look at the interior of the manor. All of it, down to the furniture, apparently built by Kisuke, which is an interesting feature of this iteration of the game.

It’s… nice. Not big enough for Ichigo to be at home in, obviously, but it’s cozy.

And inhabited by six children, along with a house steward, a cook, and a servant.

Busy.

No wonder Kisuke doesn’t drop in here very often.

* * *

Trapping Alduin’s lieutenant in Dragonsreach, the Jarl’s Hall in Whiterun, is the next step in the Dragonborn questline. And it is easy.

All they have to do is summon a Alduin’s lieutenant Odahviing with a Shout learned from the Greybeards from the open landing platform at the trap, attack him, then have Ichigo deep into the hall, luring the dragon to follow to the right spot, and then have a heavy bar and chain contraption fall on its neck.

“I will take you to Alduin’s entrance to Sovngarde,” the dragon agrees reluctantly. “In exchange for my freedom. Only by flight can you reach that place.”

Evidently the game doesn’t realise Kisuke has a dragon follower, and that flying is not an issue, so they have to let Odahviing go.

After flying for hours to the temple, Kisuke is certain that Ichigo, despite his relative inexperience, is either a better, or at least more _considerate_ , flier.

* * *

The temple is filled with draugr.

Fortunately, with Ichigo around, Kisuke can skip trawling through it in favour of getting on Ichigo’s back, and flying to the very top of it, where his other ‘ally’ refused to take him.

He has to say, Dragonrend is a very useful Shout, in terms of being able to make the two dragons guarding the area land on the ground, and be unable to pursue them through the rift.

* * *

“Well, this place is _depressing_ ,” Ichigo says, squinting at the fog.

A quest marker is leading them through it to a mead hall for the great heroes of the place, so at least they are not lost, but it’s still pretty dreary.

He can hear Alduin roaring in the distance.

“At least it’s not sunny,” Kisuke says cheerfully. “It isn’t very good for my complexion, if you know what I mean.”

Ichigo resists the urge to headbutt him. Somehow. Must be a miracle.

Even though he has heard that line approximately a thousand times before from the vampire follower, which he may or may not have accidentally left behind in Whiterun when he took off to follow Kisuke.

Ichigo isn’t allowed in the Hall, unfortunately, so he has to sit and wait for Kisuke to come out, followed by three warriors.

“They’re Dragonborn,” Kisuke explains, as they line up at the fog line. “We’ll be using a sky-clearing shout to dispel the fog Alduin uses to harvest souls from this world for his power, and catch his attention.”

Huh. Hollow-like Dragon. Weird.

It takes three tries to catch Alduin’s attention, and then it’s _on_. 

Kisuke uses Dragonrend to force him down, the warriors hold his attention, and Ichigo showers him with fire from above, avoiding the falling fiery projectiles, caused by the low-hanging spell storm created by Alduin.

After a while, a very tedious, repetitive while, they take him down. 

“Now we’ll go to the docks to do that Solstheim quest?” Ichigo asks.

Kisuke makes a very rare rude hand gesture to him from where he is lying on the ground, resting. Apparently, he ran out of the fire resistance potions, and Ichigo’s fire, Alduin’s fire, and the fiery projectiles from above did not gree with him.

* * *

There’s only one ship at the Windhelm docks, the quest marker pointing at it’s captain. Probably the captain, anyway.

Kisuke walks over to talk to him, Ichigo perching on the wall of the city, unsure if the rickety docks would support his weight.

"If you're looking for passage to Solstheim, too bad. I'm not going back there anymore,” the man says when Kisuke approaches him.

“Are you the captain of the Northern Maiden? “ Kisuke asks.

"Sure. Yeah. That's me. Why? Who sent you?" he says, sounding distinctly paranoid.

“I was attacked by some cultists who came here on your ship.”

"Now hold on! That wasn't my fault... I didn't know they were going to attack anybody. I don't even know how I got here." 

What does that mean? Kisuke is starting to get a very _weird_ feeling about this quest.

“How can you not know how you got here?” he asks.

"It's hard to explain... I remember them coming onboard, then... The next thing I remember, I was here and they were gone. That's not right, just… losing all that time. There's been something strange happening on Solstheim for a while.” He shakes his head. “Now? Now I'm done. I'm not going back to Solstheim."

Kisuke winces. He can understand, but… “Yes, I am afraid you are. You are taking me to Solstheim.“

"Have you been listening to me? I'm not going back there." The man shakes his head emphatically.

“I'll pay you triple your usual rate,” Kisuke offers.

The captain wrestles with himself, then, sighing, gives up. "Well... a man's got to make a living, after all. Fine. We'll cast off immediately."

Everything fades, just like with fast travel, and then Kisuke is standing on a very different dock, the sky grey-red and the air full of dust and ash, quite nicely blocking enough of the sunlight that Kisuke’s skin is no longer slowly burning from it.

This must be Solstheim.

Ichigo is floundering in the water, the travel not certain what to do with his bulk until he climbs to shore and shakes like a wet dog, spraying everything with water.

Kisuke walks forwards, but is interrupted in his journey, as a stranger walks up to him, a suspicious look on his face, and a cutscene is initiated.

"I don't recognize you, so I'll assume this is your first visit to Raven Rock, outlander. I am the local second councilor, Adril Arano. State your intentions."

“I'm looking for Miraak. Do you know him?” Kisuke says plainly. No need to hide, after all, when he might get information like this. 

"Miraak... I... I'm... I'm not sure that I do. Or don’t?"

Another confused person. Kisuke’s unease about the quest kicks up another notch, and he exchanges a glance with Ichigo.

“Do you know who Miraak is?” Kisuke asks.

"I... I'm unsure. I swear I know the name, but I cannot place it." The man sounds legitimately confused. He’s not lying or concealing information, Kisuke can tell.

“Can you tell me anything about him?” He tries a different way of forming the question. Perhaps that might circumvent what the mental block is.

"I don't think so. I'm not... The name has something to do with the Earth Stone, I think. But I'm not sure what."

_Objective: Find the Earth Stone._

* * *

It’s only a few minutes walk away as it turns out, just on the edge of the Raven Rock city.

The Earth Stone is surrounded by a bustling crowd of people building some sort of structure around it. Something about their movements looks… wrong. Too coordinated, too organised. Too much like ants and too little like people.

“What do you think?” Kisuke asks Ichigo quietly, a distance away from the busy construction site.

“I think…” Ichigo tilts his head. “This has something to do with the Daedra. When things are weird and fucked, it’s always something to do with Daedra.”

“Interesting.”

Kisuke walks closer to the stone, and the working people do nothing to stop him.

The quest marker is on the stone itself. Does he need to touch it?

“-Kisuke! _Kisuke!_ Damn it, _KISUKE!”_

There’s a sharp yank on his arm, long fangs holding on to it as gently as they can, and he blinks.

He’s hammering away, working with the others to build a shrine around the Earth Stone.

Wait, _what?_

He stops at once, stepping back, and Ichigo lets go of his arm with a relieved sigh.

“How long…” Kisuke isn’t sure how to put it.

“Just ten minutes, I’ve been tugging on your arm the entire time,” Ichigo says. Well, that explains the ache in Kisuke’s shoulder. Ichigo is about to say something more, when a man dressed like a wizard suddenly approaches.

"You there... You don't quite seem to be in the same state as the others. Very interesting. May I ask what it is you're doing here?" he asks, visibly curious. Wait, is that a notebook? Is he literally studying this phenomena? Literal wizard, then, not just a look-alike.

“I'm looking for someone named Miraak.” 

The wizard frowns. "Miraak...Miraak... It sounds familiar but I can’t quite place... Oh. Wait. But that makes no sense. Miraak's been dead for thousands of years."

And dead in this world seems to be something a little different than in reality. 

“What do you mean?” Ichigo asks.

"I'm not sure, but perhaps… it is related to what is happening. The fact that he is dead, that is. I'm afraid I can't give you any answers. But there are ruins of an ancient temple of Miraak's toward the center of the island. Perhaps there is something to be found there."

There is very little in Kisuke that actually wants to go and get close to the source of whatever mind controlling phenomena is going on here, but what choice do they have? None at all.

“Let’s fly there,” Ichigo suggests, shifting his wings.

“And what if you are affected and drop me out of the sky?” Kisuke says, concerned. “Or worse, fall yourself, and then both of us will be down to one life, without even getting very far into this quest.”

“Good point,” Ichigo concedes.

* * *

The temple turns out to be another location full of mind-controlled people, northeast of the city. Full, except for one person wandering around and calling out to the others, fruitlessly trying to wake them.

"You must fight against this- whatever it may be! We must leave this place! Ysra, can you hear me? You must leave this place!" She turns, and spots Kisuke. "You there. What brings you to this place. Why are you here?"

“Who are you?” Kisuke asks.

"I am Frea of the Skaal. I am here to either save my people, or avenge them." 

“Save them how? From what, exactly?” Perhaps she has answers? But it’s unlikely for a major questline to be that short.

"Mind control, across the island, forcing people to build these… things, that corrupt the Stones, the land. My father Storn, the shaman of our people, he says Miraak has returned to Solstheim. But that is impossible."

“We are looking for a Miraak,” Ichigo says, butting into the conversation.

"Then… if he is indeed behind this, we have a common enemy,” she says decisively. “I doubt there is anything we can do here for now. I think we need to find a way into the temple below, for answers." 

Makes sense, although Kisuke is loathe to enter such a place without draconic backup. The vampire still following him will have to do, he supposes, and at worst, he can shift into the vampire lord form.

“You are the last one left unaffected of your people?” he asks, curious. Perhaps she’s a secret enemy, this whole set up a trap?

"There are a few of us left free. My father, Storn, the shaman, protects them in the village. I am protected by an amulet I created, but it is one of a kind. I must find a way to save my people. "

Or perhaps not. A helpful quest-specific follower, like Serana?

She heads for the entrance to the temple.

Kisuke turns to Ichigo.

“I will return as soon as possible,” he says.

* * *

Cultits, draugr, draugr deathlords, draugr overlords… 

Kisuke summons two Flame Atronachs at the entrance to every room and stays back, unwilling to engage.

Vampire life-draining powers are most effective against the _living,_ not the dead.

The temple is… deep.

And the deeper they go, the worse of a feeling he gets, especially passing a dragon skeleton hung up on display.

The NPC guide comments at that. "I had heard Miraak, who was once a Dragon Priest, betrayed his masters… but to do this? Little wonder the dragons razed this place, witnessing such an affront to them."

Dragon Priest? Then Miraak will likely be a formidable foe, but easier to beat than Alduin.

Deeper still the place goes, twice requiring the finding of secret triggers to open passageways to progress further.

Strange statues start to appear in the corridors, tentacled forms that bear no resemblance to anything Kisuke has seen in Skyrim.

Nothing architectural, at least. There was that one time the Daedric entity Hermaeus-Mora showed up as Kisuke was talking to the man who knew of the location of the Elder Scroll about Dragons, but…

Wait, Ichigo did say something like that was probably involved.

Which meant that things were likely to soon get _interesting._

Eventually, they reach a chamber, a black book on the pedestal in the middle.

Kisuke is usually quite fond of things consisting of paper and containing knowledge, but something seems _off_ here.

"This book... it feels wrong. Is this what we seek?"

Well, there’s no choice, really, as a quest marker appears on top of the book.

Kisuke walks up to the pedestal, and opens the book.

For a second, nothing happens, and he just stares at the pages full of arcane symbols.

A glowing black tentacle snaps out of the middle of the book, wrapping around his throat and pulling him in before he can do anything to fight back.

He’s thrown on a cold, hard floor, and lands on his hands and knees, coughing.

The air is thick and cold and reeking of something unpleasant that burns at his lungs like some kind of heavy, acidic mist.

He opens his eyes.

Above, green clouds swirl across a black sky. Around him, strange bone and rock floors and walls rise out of a green-black sea, something moving under the surface, disturbing it.

A figure stands ahead, looking like a more advanced version of a dragon priest. 

Miraak?

"Who are you to dare set foot here? Ahh... You are Dragonborn, as I am. I can feel it. Hmm..." The figure hisses, and his voice is almost painful to hear, something about it _unnatural_ , wrong. Unsurprising, if he lives in this kind of place with ease. “You have slain Alduin. Well done. I could have slain him myself, back when I walked the earth, but I chose a different path."

Kisuke doubts that a little, but doesn’t say it aloud. If he was that powerful, then whatever this fate that befell him is, it would not have done so.

"Despite your achievement, the true strength of a Dragonborn is beyond your reach! Mul... Qah Div!” A dragon swoops from the skies, and he steps up on its back. A mind controlling shout? “This realm is beyond you, and you are powerless here. And soon, Solstheim will be mine. And then Skyrim, and then the rest of Tamriel. Soon, my temple will be restored. Soon, I will be home.”

He turns and hisses, and two creatures that Kisuke had seen as statues before, rise from the ground. “ _Send him back. He can wait for me with the rest of Tamriel.”_

Waves of magic wash over him, and he returns, gasping, to the underground temple.

Oh, that was _unpleasant_.

* * *

“Okay, next time, lets try reading the book at the same time. Maybe then we can both go in. Oblivion realms are… pretty dangerous, and if that’s Herma-Mora’s…” Ichigo trails off.

“Ichigo-san?”

“This game does... a lot of things to the player. Kills them, twists them into the worst versions of themselves… or traps them. That place, Apocrypha, devours the curious by offering endless knowledge.”

Ah. “Rest assured, Ichigo-san. I want to go home far more than learn things only applicable in the game.”

“Good,” Ichigo says. “That’s- good.”

Kisuke wonders, a little, what Ichigo had seen in here before, but doubts this is a place to waste time on reminiscing.

* * *

Ichigo follows Kisuke to the village, and listens as he talks to the shaman, Storn.

"So you have seen things, yes? My magic grows weak, and so does the barrier around our village. Time is short. Tell me what you know,” says Storn.

“Miraak is behind what's happening to your people. I met him, after I read a book I found in his temple,” Kisuke says.

"The legends speak of that place. Many terrible things they speak of, the rage of dragons and their vengeance, and worse things than that. And if it is true, then it means..."

The NPC stops talking, and Ichigo sighs. The game clearly hasn’t fixed its need for the player to manually prompt the exposition dumps to continue.

“What does it mean?” Kisuke asks. 

"It means what we have feared has come to pass. Long-banished, Miraak has found a path to return. If you have been able to find him then perhaps… Are you like Miraak, are you an equal of him? Are you Dragonborn?" The shaman sounds hopeful.

“Yes.” Kisuke says.

Storn relaxes a little. "Perhaps that is good, perhaps that gives us all a chance."

“What does it mean for us both to be Dragonborn? “

"I do not know. Perhaps save us, perhaps destroy us. We have little time to ponder. Go to Searing’s Watch, learn the word of power there, and use it to break the corruption on the Wind Stone, and then the others.”

Ah. A word of the mind control Shout Kisuke mentioned, almost certainly, to override Miraak’s use of it on the people.

* * *

They find a dragon at the dragon wall, but when it is defeated… Ichigo watches in concern as Kisuke briefly spaces out- and then returns to himself, shaking his head in irritation.

“Miraak devoured its soul,” he says. “Thankfully, I have some spare ones I did not use on unlocking Shouts, so I can still unlock the word I just got.”

That’s good. Although, if Miraak is this strong… the fight might be a touch difficult when they get to it.

* * *

Freeing the people from mind control is a simple affair, as it turns out. All Kisuke needs to do is Shout at the stones, fight one of the wandering tentacle masses called Lurkers that appear when he does so, then move on to the next stone.

With Ichigo around, that’s a matter of about five seconds.

The Lurkers are very, _very_ squishy.

* * *

“Your people are free,” Kisuke tells the shaman once he’s finished dealing with every stone on the island. The quest said only to handle one, but Ichigo and he were certain they’d need to clear the others anyway later, so they might as well do it then.

"So it is. You have proven yourself to be an ally to the Skaal, and so the Skaal shall be allies to you," Storn says, sounding grateful.

“What do we do now?” 

"Perhaps you can free the rest of the stones. It will likely not stop Miraak, but it may buy us time."

_Quest Started- Quest Complete._

They were right.

“Tell me more about this book, then,” Kisuke says, and shows the black book to the shaman, who does not touch it. The man frowns.

"Miraak had this? This is not of dragons. This is.. something else. A wizard came to us, Neloth, asking about such things. He is in the South. Be cautious. There is something else at play.”

Hermaeus-Mora, most likely.

* * *

Ichigo sits outside the Dwermer ruin of Nchardak, waiting for Kisuke to return with the Black Book inside it, helping that wizard retrieve it from its vault.

He counts seagulls as time passes, until, eventually, the door swings open.

Kisuke exits, a look of _profound_ irritation on his face.

“Everything okay?” Ichigo asks, concerned. Dwermer ruins can be a right pain, but Kisuke wasn’t gone so long as to indicate that he got stuck with some puzzle in there.

“It turns out there’s worse things about NPCs than having a repertoire of ten lines.”

Ichigo tilts his head, and Kisuke clarifies.

“If you took the worst of Kurotsuchi’s and Aizen’s personality traits, removed the human experimentation, and then added some more hubris, you would get that wizard following me,” Kisuke mutters. “Let us read the book right now, so I can get a _break_ from listening to him.”

Ah.

Yeah, some people in Tamriel are real _personalities_.

* * *

The air in Apocrypha, the world the book has taken them to, is so heavy that Ichigo sticks to walking across the floor, following right behind Kisuke and helping him flambe the Seekers and Lurkers scattered throughout. The poor souls of those who once sought knowledge, forever stuck in here, devoured by the plane.

Usually, even without managing to set Kisuke on fire in the process! His control over the flame’s direction has gotten much better.

Kisuke’s complaints are _definitely_ only half-warranted. Ichigo can _see_ him drinking flame resistance potions on the regular.

Ichigo eyes the sea of black, and the tentacles lashing out of it, trying to get at him.

“I wonder if it’s possible to make sashimi out of them,” he says idly. “This place could be an infinite source of eldritch squid sashimi.”

Kisuke stops walking, and looks at the tentacles for a second.

“Maybe if served with a side of anti-venom or some such, but that would make it a far less profitable venture,” he says eventually. “Might be very expensive to find an antidote to something that can live in _this_ environment.”

They end up having to read the books they find in order to progress deeper into Apocrypha. Ichigo suspects that dying here may not be fatal- it is a book, after all, but he doesn’t want to test it.

It takes five book portals for them to finally find what looks like the end.

Judging by the mass of eyeballs and tentacles hovering above a last book, anyway. Daedra always look _weird_ , to say the least.

"All seekers of knowledge come to my realm, sooner or later,” the mass of grossness says, sounding remarkably like Aizen.

“Yes, I came here to learn Miraak's secrets,” Kisuke replies.

"All that he knows he learned from me. And now I give you the second word of Bend Will, as a reward for reaching here.”

“And the third word? Will you give that?”

Kisuke is so optimistic if he thinks a Daedric Prince will just be nice and helpful. Ichigo has no doubt they’re about to get landed with some nasty, unpleasant quest that will get an NPC or several killed.

“Knowledge for knowledge. The Skaal have withheld their secrets from me for many long years. The time has come for this knowledge to be added to my library." The glorified squid sounds very smug, and Ichigo has a bad feeling about this.

Still, these people are not real, and… unpleasant as this is bound to be, they have to do it to get home.

“Why aid me against him? Is he not your ally?“

Oh, Kisuke really must have missed out on dealing with Daedra, somehow. They’re unreliable amusement-seeking assholesas a rule, is why.

"He has served me long and well. But he grows restless under my guidance, seeking freedom, independence. His return to the world may aid me, but also hinder me. I seek a new, more loyal servant. Now go, and send the Skaal shaman to me, so that I may reward you further."

Hermaeus Mora vanishes, leaving behind a book, symbols glowing above it.

Kisuke approaches, and Ichigo sees him consider something for a moment, then selects a symbol.

“It grants an improvement to my Frost Shout,” He explains at Ichigo’s curious expression. “It encases everything in ice.”

Oh, nice.

Kisuke touches the book again, and they return abruptly to the real world.

They have a moment’s pause, and then they hear the screech of an attacking dragon.

"Miraak has commanded your death. So it shall be," they hear it rumble, and Ichigo springs back, Kisuke using Whirlwind Sprint to vanish into the distance before the flames hit him.

Right. Ichigo’ll distract the dragon, being the considerably less flammable of the two of them. Kisuke will use Dragonrend to make it land, then they’ll make short work of it.

The usual strategy.

* * *

“This will not end well for the shaman, will it?” Kisuke asks Ichigo quietly as they approach the village.

Ichigo shakes his head. “The Daedra’s meddling always tends to leave many dead bodies. Everyone other than the protagonist, really.”

Kisuke sighs, and marches into the village, heading for the likely soon-to-be-dead NPC.

“I spoke to Hermaeus Mora. He asked for the ‘secrets of the Skaal’." Kisuke does, idly, wonder what the secrets are himself now. But he has to stay on task, not investigate, not when they’re possibly so close to leaving this game.

"Hermaeus Mora... old Herma-Mora himself. Yes, that explains Miraak’s power. Of course. And now he is using this situation to finally trick us into giving up our secrets, inconsequential as they may be."

“He said it's the only way he'll teach me the final Word of Miraak's Shout,” Kisuke says apologetically.

“And that no doubt is the only way to save us all now. So it falls to me to fulfil the ancient realisation that one day we will have to surrender our secrets to his possessive grasp.” He sounds grave, but not surprised.

Kisuke blinks in surprise. He is agreeing, just like that? He almost expected another quest to be given, to settle his affairs first, or some such task.

“You are ready to give it to him?”

“We knew this day would come. It is my duty to guard them, but also to decide if the time is right to give them up for a nobler cause. If I am wrong, may the ancestors and the descendents forgive me.” He sighs. “Now, give me the book. I will read it and speak to old Herma-Mora himself. I will make sure he lives up to his part of the bargain."

“I hope you know what you're doing.“

"That is my hope as well. I am trusting you will make this sacrifice worthwhile." 

The shaman steps away, and his daughter rushes to him. 

Kisuke watches as she pleads for him not to do it.

"You can not do this! Father, please. You have taught me this, that this is wrong, and that book- how can we be sure Herma-Mora keeps his bargain?,” she says, and he can almost hear her crying.

"I must, Frea. It is our only chance to survive, for Solstheim to survive. Nothing that exists stays unchanging. Do not fear for me; this is my destiny."

Can a game’s pre-written narrative be called destiny? For its characters, perhaps yes. 

“I am ready,” Storn says, and opens the book, beginning to read.

Tentacles burst from it, spearing through him, and Kisuke shudders, thinking of how easily that could have been his fate if the book was a trap and not intended to be read.

Hermaeus Mora appears, again, with as many eyes and limbs as before.

"Dragonborn, you have delivered me what I have long wanted. I gift you with the last word of power you need to challenge Miraak, and become either his successor, or a worthy stepping stone on his journey to greatness.”

_Last word of Bend Will is learned._

_Quest Complete._

_Quest Started: At The Summit Of Apocrypha._

Kisuke watches as Storn dies, and walks over, picking up the fallen book.

Into the Apocrypha once more, then.

* * *

This journey feels longer, as they walk through endless corridors of rotten stone and slimy metal, until, at last, they assemble a set of books and place them on the corresponding pedestals in a massive chamber, unlocking the final portal.

“Well, this is it,” Ichigo mutters. “Once we do this quest, we can probably go home.”

Kisuke nods, and activates the book.

They appear in a large area, a word wall and some Lurkers wandering the area. They kill them, and wait.

 _Quest Step: Use Bend Will on Sahrotaar,_ the game updates the quest, giving them just a moments notices before a dragon swoops down.

It takes one shout to do so, and Kisuke detests the oily, slick feeling of it.

At least he won’t need it again.

The dragon lands. _"Hail, speaker. Your voice, your Thu’um, has the mastery over Miraak’s. Climb aboard and I will carry you to him."_

Kisuke would much rather fly with Ichigo, just for the assurance that he won’t be randomly dropped in the water, but quest here can be tricky things in terms of triggering the next steps correctly.

They reach a tower, and the dragon lets Kisuke down, Ichigo landing right behind.

Miraak awaits there, accompanied by three of his own dragons.

"Sahrotaar, are you so easily swayed? No. Not yet. We should greet our guest first." He turns to Kisuke. "And so the First Dragonborn meets the Last Dragonborn at the summit of Apocrypha. Hm. Doubtlessly, all the plan of Hermaeus Mora. He is a fickle, faithless master, and now I will be free of him. I will go to Tamriel, and your corpse will stay here in Apocrypha. And I will use the strength of your soul to return.”

Kisuke barely gives him time to finish speaking before he casts a Firestorm in his direction.

No use saving his magic-restoring potions past this point. Not a great number of them, anyway, not when this boss comes with multiple dragons, and great power in his own right.

There won’t be anything to fight afterward, he is certain.

Ichigo rises into the air behind him, and goes for one of the dragons. Sahrotaar breathes frost into the open area, aiming for Miraak.

Kisuke downs a potion, restoring his magicka to full, and summons two Storm Atronachs, the strongest he can.

Best to see how strong Miraak is before he gets too close to him, he thinks, and draws his bow.

Summon two Storm Atronachs, use Frost Breath on Miraak, who resists the icing effect, run around the area shooting Fireballs at him, drink Health, Magicka, and Stamina potions, rinse and repeat. And make sure to avoid all the Shouts, and magic spells, and returned arrows in the process.

Kisuke tries to minimise the potion use, however, as the dragons are yet to join the battle, meaning this is still the first phase of combat. And then-

As an arrow is about to hit, Miraak uses the Ethereal Form shout, running to the middle of the tower platform, and summons one of the dragons down.

No, not summons.

Kills.

It falls out of the air, and suddenly Miraak feels stronger, the blood and injuries on him vanishing, and Kisuke curses.

That’s what the dragons are for. And one of them is used, and one of them is already dead, thanks to Ichigo.

Well, in that case… he needs to be a little less cautious, perhaps.

Avoid the Shout that could fling him off the tower, get close, use the swords enchanted with health and Magicka draining enchantments, then retreat and let Storm Atronachs take over while he rests. At least, with only one dragon left, there’s only two phases of this battle remaining.

Perhaps, if Ichigo can take it out, not even that.

At least he’s not getting _uglier_ with every stage, like someone Kisuke knows.

Several minutes later, Miraak does resort to draining a dragon- except it’s not the one Ichigo is still fighting, it’s Sahrotaar, which makes Kisuke curse, because that was a _useful_ ally.

And then the other dragon falls from the sky, Ichigo swooping down to stand on the edge of the arena where Sahrotaar was, and breathe fire at Miraak.

Kisuke flashes him a smile, and they fight. 

They do it far better than Kisuke and the NPC dragon had, because of course the NPC wouldn’t coordinate his attacks with the precise timing to distract Miraak from Kisuke at the best moment.

Miraak suddenly turns, and Shouts. For a second, the world warps, and Kisuke has a sinking feeling that killing the dragons not involved in the fight broke something in the order of the game.

And Ichigo falls.

Kisuke knows he still has a spare life left, but he is still so distracted that Miraak nearly hits him with a Firestorm of his own.

No. 

Kisuke turns to Miraak with a vicious focus, not letting him have the time or space to gather himself for a Shout.

Ichigo respawns moments later, swooping from the sky.

The game is demanding the fight proceed in a certain way, that must be why Miraak devoured Sahrotaar, because the original dragon meant to be eaten was killed by Ichigo.

Blood sprays over everything, Miraak nearing death again.

Or. Perhaps not.

Four dragons, and one initial phase health.

Five phases, a nicer number than four.

If he will simply draw on what is available…

Miraak shouts, and Ichigo is falling, again.

And a fireball is heading Kisuke’s way.

He chooses.

“ _I give one of my lives to you!”_

The timing is _bad_ , because the fire resistance potion has just run out, and Kisuke is forced to cast healing on himself with both hands just to stay alive- and that lets Miraak get the upper hand, switching to the offensive.

Shit.

Kisuke runs, hissing, the Health bar refusing to rise as he is still on fire. And his Magicka is _running out_.

He just needs to hold on a little more, and then Ichigo can finish this fight.

An Unrelenting Force shout throws him against a wall, which is the only good thing about it, because if he fell off the Tower he would be done for. His Health bar is down to almost nothing, and the potions in the inventory have _run out_ , leaving him with nothing but food to restore health. And food only gives one or two points per item.

And then Miraak is swallowed by flames.

Kisuke watches Ichigo simply _trash_ Miraak, stomping on him with his feet, disregarding the spells thrown at him, even though they must be making a massive dent in his own health reserves.

But not faster than Ichigo is killing Miraak, it turns out, as soon he is left gasping and collapsing on the ground, right in the middle of the arena.

There’s a dark, strange sound, and then Hermaaus Mora appears above him.

"Did you think to escape me, Miraak? You can hide nothing from me here. No matter. I have found a new Dragonborn to serve me."

Kisuke thinks he rather takes offence at that, but even devouring as much food in his inventory as he can, his vision is still starting to grey out, flames still licking at his clothes, refugint to go out.

"May he be rewarded for his service as I am!"

Tentacles pierce Miraak, killing him instantly.

“Miraak harboured fantasies of rebellion,” Hermaeus Mora purrs. “Learn from him. Serve faithfully, and you will be rewarded.”

Oh, could that reward be sleep? Weirdly, Kisuke wants to sleep right now.

He vanishes, leaving behind a white portal.

_Quest Complete._

_Main Quests Completed._

_Exit game?_

“Kisuke, say yes!” Ichigo says.

Can’t he take a nap first? But it’s Ichigo asking.

“Yes,” Kisuke says, and everything goes black.

* * *

“That was… unpleasant,” Kisuke says, now sprawled on his futon, Ichigo taking up the chair in front of the computer, focused on breaking the game disk into as many tiny pieces as he can manage. “Did that, at the end…”

“Yeah,” Ichigo says. “He must have had some anti-vampire flame skill. Holy Flames, only doused by getting into water, so usually deadly to vampires in a fight. Not fun on the receiving side.”

“Ah. Interesting.”

“Don’t worry, the vampirism wouldn’t have got out of the game with you,” Ichigo reassures him. “Previous incarnations of the game affected the world, sometimes, but not since it went digital. Another player told me, the first time I was in it.”

Kisuke looks at him, curious.

“How did _you_ end up with it?”

Ichigo sighs.

“That’s a long story. How about we get some lunch, first? I guess I can put off leaving for university for a little bit longer.”


End file.
